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A home without a wall, |
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| The Alley |
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Occupy Wall Street |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
There's been little media attention so far but the protests seem to be spreading - are you for or against them or indifferent? . |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
So far, from what I can tell, these protesters are as clueless about that which they're angry as were the original Tea Partiers before the corporate money came in and organized them, marketed them, and transplanted leaders into their ranks. They appear to be leaderless and without any specific objective, so its hard to say. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Iagree. They don't seem to know what they are protesting about or what solutions could change the way things are. It was a little entertaining about the SSocialist studen who staged his "The bank took my parent's home!" charade.  |
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icebox Member Elite
since 2003-05-03
Posts 4383in the shadows |
While current targets address a variety of issues being protested, including police (understandable), mainstream media (poor choice), big banks and their approach to mortgages, poverty, Sotheby's, social inequality, genetically modified food, tuition costs and/or having to pay back student loans, having to pay for food and/or for rent, global warming, corporate greed, the execution of Troy Davis, and apparently the existence of Brooklyn Bridge, the way the panoply of NYC Wall Street protests has evolved, they have become, to deliberate political demonstrations, what flash mobs are to shopping. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Who is financially supporting these people? They obviously aren't supporting themselves by working at a JOB. Or are these the nation's unemployed population? |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
WHo is supporting them, Denise? Look left... |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
LOL....maybe that's where some of the missing Stimulus funds went, to Soros and Van Jones groups, to finance this communist garbage. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Yep, Van Jones has jumped right into this one....and will someone please tell Biden who Van Jones is??? |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “Eighty-seven percent of upper-income Americans -- those making $75,000 or more annually -- own stocks, as do 83% of postgraduates and 73% of college graduates.” http://www.gallup.com/poll/147206/stock-market-investments-lowest-1999.aspx Overall a little over 50% of Americans are invested . . . . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: Absolutely true! And I think this is a fabulous idea. Back in 1963 I ran into a couple of Soviet graduate students in economics wandering the campus of Cornell University, where my father was taking his Ph.D. in Business Administration. Calling them "graduate students" was probably giving them short shrift, because each of them already had a Ph.D. back in the old USSR, but they were charming and smart and they had a very different point of view on things than anybody I knew, so I brought them home for dinner and conversation with the family. They were indeed shocked to learn that so many ordinary folks were invested in the stock exchange; it wasn't common knowledge in the Soviet Union, not even among party members, which both our visitors in fact were. Dad took them for a visit to the local supermarket — in retrospect, a bit of a patronizing thing to do — and showed them the variety of options available. They were impressed. He even showed them the dog food section, the canned dog food — they didn't see the need for such a thing in the soviet union at the time — and then the monster-sized fifty pound bags. The senior soviet economist looked at the bags, looked at dad, looked at the bags again and said in one of the driest comments I've ever heard, "Oh," he said, with the pronounced Russian accent, "for parties!" We ran into them again a few times over the next year or two; both were dear guys. In conversation, one of them acknowledged that he himself would have liked to own his own private car. I'm afraid it might have gotten him in trouble with the other. I hope not. But I'm afraid, in our own eagerness to sell our own system to them, we might have misrepresented it slightly. The number of people who own stock is right, though I don't think that they own it because they've bought it themselves. I think a lot of them have it because they are members of a retirement program that has invested in the stock market for them, it has often done a pretty good job of it. Technically these folks own stock, but to suggest they have any actual competency at the market is a gross exaggeration. I know I don't. And there are people who are extremely interested in getting their hands on the money of people who can be talked into giving it to them to invest. While there are loads of wonderful, ethical and competent folks in the industry, there are also a fair number of people who are not and who would be thrilled to tell you what to do with your money. During times when the market is doing well, it seems to any fool can make a million bucks by sneezing. During times when the economy is tanking, the reality of the situation becomes a bit more starkly drawn. For folks with much investing experience, it is clear that the hype about what happens even during boom times has been more than slightly misrepresented, and that some skill is needed in order to even break even, let alone to do well. This is not a skill that I have or even pretend to have. It is not a skill that many investors have either. This would be the time that I would gently remind anybody who's read this far of the Republican plan to dismantle the social security system and turn the money over to you, the private investor, to double, triple and quadruple the shabby returns that social security offers you as return on your hard earned money. I would ask you, humbly, what would have happened to you and your social security supplemental retirement funds if they'd been taken out of social security in the year 2000 and if you'd put them into the market at that point, perhaps into the hot computer stocks at that time. Where was the market then, and where is it now? And what do you think your money at that time would be worth today if you'd followed the Republican advice? If you'd been a particularly lucky insider, perhaps you'd have done well, of course. Would you have been one of them? Or do you think that you'd have been smarter to use money that would not have been in a social security account to make speculative investments of these sorts, in retrospect? Is there some reason for regular folks to be a little bit miffed with the way people are running wall street and the banks and the investment houses. I'm not waving any sign around, myself, but I believe we have not been doing a great job in policing the antics there. How many people were charged and tried in the Savings and Loan scandals, and how many, in comparison, were investigated and charged in this latest round of economic woe. How many investigators were assigned in one case, and how many were assigned in the other? If you wonder about upset about Wall Street, then it would seem to me that the answers to those questions might offer some answers, if, in fact, there is any interest in getting answers before calling names and setting up the gallows begins. I haven't noticed any, myself. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
The stock market probably wouldn't have tanked without the manipulations of Soros and his ilk, we wouldn't have lost a huge percentage of our savings/retirement funds and we would probably have someone else as president right now. Speculation, but something that I would bet money on if I had any. And now in true anarchist/communist form they are trying their bottom-up/top-down strategy to attempt to collapse the system to put the final nail in the coffin. http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/9269-big-soros-money-linked-to-occupy-wall-street |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Interesting speculation, but very difficult to substantiate, Denise, at least in the forms that you supply above. quote: Apparently the right has taken an extreme dislike to Mr. Soros, enough so that any mention of his name is supposed to mean that any enterprise tainted with acquaintance with it is an example of unmitigated evil. Denise's references are rife with comments about Soros-this and Soros-that. Perhaps the fact that Mr. Soros is a Capitalist has managed to skip past the awareness of the entire right wing, and that in many ways he is a ringing endorsement for the Capitalist values they espouse. The very mention of Mr. Soros is supposed to make us forget that he is a Capitalist, and make us think that he is a demon. Denise then trots out the regular list of Right wing demons, including the organizations that support unions, women's health, regulation of financial markets, and suffering witches to live. It has not been terrible to support people who disagree with you in this country for at least ten years, and shooting union members has not been generally supported since the Ford motor company and many of the mining companies hired Pinkerton's to take the dirty work off company hands at least twenty years back. From the way Denise rages about unions and communists, you'd think that there was an active conspiracy to wipe out democracy coming from people whose politics start from Dwight Eisenhower and go left from there. It isn't true. I read through the article that Denise referenced as the source for her speculations, and this is what I found: A list of other articles for further reference. I include them here for your inspection and consideration. quote: In other words, these are the usual suspects, essentially indistinguishable from the same folks that the Nazis would have listed: Trade-unionists, Communists, socialists, blacks, anti-capitalist forces, anti-statist forces, and Jews. Denise, my dear, I think you're being taken for a ride by some very dubious people with a sweet line of patter and evil intentions. There's not a single point of view there that shouldn't be welcome in an American election, and whose speakers shouldn't be allowed as free a hearing as your own, so long as they don't advocate the overthrow of the duly elected government by force of arms. And these are points of view that the tea party and the Republican party with its occasional talk of "second amendment solutions" have come very close to advocating themselves, in case you had not noticed. I certainly have. At least one of the references that you offered, by the way, was not available for copyright reasons. Perhaps your publication couldn't come to agreement with the copyright holder. Have you asked yourself what other reasons copyright permission might not be granted? It may well be something perfectly harmless of course, and we should consider this first of all, to be fair. To be fair, as well, one should also consider that the publication was not making appropriate use of the material in question, and republication rights were not granted for that reason. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Denise, Soros has a right to complain about capitalism...he only made a little over 7 billion last year. As with most rich Democrats, he publicly preaches against the rich and privately laughs at the gullible for believing him. He and Michael Moore make a good team....two perfect icons of the democrat party. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
"The tea party name is meant in fun, inspired by an amusing rant from CNBC's Rick Santelli in February 2009, when he called for another tea party in response to Obama's plan to bail out irresponsible mortgagers. The tea partiers didn't arrogantly claim to be drafting a new Declaration of Independence. They're perfectly happy with the original. Tea partiers didn't block traffic, sleep on sidewalks, wear ski masks, fight with the police or urinate in public. They read the Constitution, made serious policy arguments and petitioned the government against Obama's unconstitutional big government policies, especially the stimulus bill and Obamacare. Then they picked up their own trash and quietly went home. Apparently, a lot of them had to be at work in the morning." Read more: This is what a mob looks like http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=352177#ixzz1a0KRxK00 |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Just how much revenue was/is the State of New York and New York City getting from Wall Street? Didn’t the Obama campaign get a nice slice as well? . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I would hope so. As businesses and owners of real estate in the city of New York and in New York State, they should pay the aqppropriate taxes in those locations as well. It depends on which parties are in charge, how those revenues are distributed, though, doesn't it? My understanding is that the current Mayor of New York is Republican, though I believe the current governor is Democratic. Yet I remember fairly clearly when the Republican leadership traveled to New York to speak with the folks in wall street when the country was at the height of its upset after the the economic disasters in 2008 and the country was crying for blood and regulation andfor wholesale investigations of wall street and the various investment houses and banks. And after some brief discussions, the Republican leadership returned to washington and bravely stood up for the business interests and preached caution. We certainly didn't want to rush — not so much to judgement, but to investigation of fact finding. The Republicans have bravely stood by their courageous stand ever since, at the same time as they have turned the cold light of blame on those who have lost their money and jobs as a result. And at the same time that they have bravely stood against any serious attempt to set a recovery plan into effect by priming the pump of the economic engine. [Edit - Removed comments centered too much on the poster instead of the post. - Ron] I spent a day or two volunteering down at a homeless shelter a few weeks back. It cost me energy and time, neither of which I had or have a lot to spare. I found the experience educational. I commend it to anybody who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty on occasion. I was told that one of the big needs was for tube socks. A fair number of these folks were working, they simply didn't have a place to live. There were also a fair number of families. [This message has been edited by Ron (10-06-2011 08:02 PM).] |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I spend two days a week, every week...one in a soup kitchen and the other at the outreach crisis center. I do not think of my time and energy in terms of costing me and I find it more than educational. It is right. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
"For". I'm for them. I'm for the ones against them too. Wasn't this country founded as a result of protest, formalized, finally as a republic of democracy? |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Absolutely... and for that reason I'm for their right to do so, also....peacefully and with respect to others. If protestors showed up on your front lawn, trampling your grass and flowers, defecating in your yard and screaming obscenities while blocking your driveway, I'm not so sure you would be too supportive. I know I wouldn't be. In a way, I'm glad they are out there, doing it. They have no plan and half of them don't even know what they are protesting against. It's a "to do" thing, like the flower children of the 60's, except that even THEY knew what they were protesting. WHy am I glad? They are being fueled and led by liberals....Van Jones, Michael Moore, George Soros, Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, and other multi-millionaires protesting against the capitalistic system that made them rich. They may call themselves the 99% but I feel pretty sure that the vast majority of Americans who get up in the morning and actually take showers and then go off to an actual job, look on them with disdain. They do no favors for the liberal cause. What we are seeing is our educational system in action, where liberal professors and administrators fill young minds with mush and turn out graduates that can't even write a protest poster in correct english but know for a fact that the country owes them a living and capitalism is evil. Good luck to them in the real world. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. It's a "happening" simple . |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
They are coming here too: http://www.leaderpost.com/business/Occupy+Regina+plans+protest/5509318/story.html What exactly are they trying to do with all this protesting? |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Become memorable . |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
They have no idea, Ess. As John said...it's a happening. Be there or be square (in 60's talk). Individuals have been asked by reporters that same question and they can't answer it. I'm hoping it's not a liberal dress rehearsal for things to come. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
During a press conference Thursday afternoon, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi praised those participating in the “Occupy Wall Street” protests. ”God bless them,” Pelosi said, “for their spontaneity. It’s independent … it’s young, it’s spontaneous, and it’s focused. And it’s going to be effective.” “The message of the protesters is a message for the establishment everyplace,” said the House Democrats’ leader. “No longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street.” Pelosi did not comment on–and was not asked about–the law-breaking that occurred during the protest over the weekend. About 700 protesters were arrested by New York City police after the protesters “swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge and shut down a lane of traffic for several hours,” according to CBS News. When the Tea Party movement emerged in 2009, then-Speaker of the House Pelosi called them “astroturf” and “un-American” people who were “carrying swastikas.” http://dancingczars.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/pelosi-on-occupy-wall-street-protesters-god-bless-them/ Maybe you should ask Pelosi, Ess. She claims they are focused and will be effective...in what, I have no idea. So, for Pelosi, it's God bless the occupiers and damn the un-American, astroturf tea partiers. Why am I not surprised? Surely she can realize how much of an idiot she projects herself to be....wouldn't you think???  |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Remember when Barack Obama said that the Tea Party “expresses the frustrations that the American people feel?” Oh, wait. That wasn’t the Tea Party he said that about. It was Occupy Wall Street, the group that liberal writer Michael Scherer described as “marginal, rag-tag, ill-defined and without focus.” Based on their latest shenanigans, Scherer could have added violent to his list of descriptors. Last night members of New York’s finest clashed with demonstrators for the second time, but this time things really got ugly. The New York Post reports that skirmishes broke out along Broadway, with arrests at Liberty, Cedar, Wall and Ann streets. In most cases, protesters tried to jump barricades, drawing sharp police responses. The biggest clash happened as more than 150 marchers demanded access to Wall Street from Broadway. About 25 of them tried to push through, as officers used clubs and Mace to move them back. One cop in a white shirt, signaling he’s a supervisor, was caught on camera wildly swinging his baton in the battle, which led to at least six arrests. Shades of the Tea Party, no? No. Jim Treacher at The Daily Caller asks rhetorically, “Who’s more likely to get arrested, a Tea Partier or a Wall Street Occupier?” but only the most abject liar on the left could profess not to know the single truthful answer to that question. In addition to their proclivity toward violence, the OWSers still seem to be a group in search of a message. But neither that nor their angry-mob mentality has stopped the president from expressing his admiration for them. http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2011/10/06/obama-speaks-out-on-occupy-wall-street-youll-never-guess-how-he-views-them/ |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: I hadn't heard the 99% meme before your use of it, and I have trouble understanding what's meant by it. However, I think that your love for hyperbole may have gotten you into hot water in your statement above. If the unemployment rate is 9.1%, as was reported on the news the morning; and if that rate is enough to ignite the rage that you've attributed to the public on those occasions when I've seen you draw conclusions from it, then the anger is and should be general, Mike. You've been confidently rageful about the direction of the anger. You've been attributing it steadily to the Democrats and to the left, and the notion that any significant part of that anger may be directed toward the Business community, toward the Right and toward the actions of the Republicans appears to be catching you at a very uncomfortable place. I don't know for sure. I do know where my sense of personal logic and my personal grasp of history would tend to send me in looking for an explanation. I think that the right has been over-reaching and that they've gotten folks steamed about that fact to the point where there may be some risings in the streets. This is the sort of thing that pushed the country toward the left in the thirties, or at least potentially it may be. In some social work circles it's thought that Roosevelt was a conservative who vas forced to make concessions to the left to prevent an overall revolution. I'm somewhat dubious of that theory, personally, but you do hear it spoken about from time to time. The fact that we're even using the term "Wall Street" in serious discussion suggests that the conversation is sounding more and more like a Tom and Jerry Cartoon in some ways. Nevertheless, the country goes through periods like this from time to time, and I guess this may be one of those times when we aren't thinking about what we're saying to each other very clearly. While there may not have been as many nazi party flags at tea party gatherings as folks on my end of the political spectrum remember, the tea party folks may have occasional memory lapses about their ability to allow democratic senators and congressmen to address their constituents on health care proposals without being shouted down without being permitted to speak. They may also have forgotten that these tactics are certainly permissible, but also have a chilling effect on free speech and political dialogue in a democracy. I have trouble believing that Tea Party folk would encourage such tactics be brought to meetings featuring their own candidates as the major speakers, though I may well be wrong. Suggesting that this current wave of protests is bad is something I find bothersome, since I haven't seen a lot of data yet on whether they are in particular Democratic, Independent or Republican in nature. They do, however, seem almost certainly anti-exploitation in nature. I would be curious who would wish to identify him or herself as being pro-exploitation at this point in time, and why they would even think such a stance would be politically useful, not to mention morally useful. I'd think that it would be wise to have the nature of the message to be far more clearly defined before saying that exploitation is good. Just saying. [This message has been edited by Bob K (10-08-2011 03:02 AM).] |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
They look well groomed to me, Mike. They also seem, it strikes me, to be about as antithetical to the "1%er's" that a lot of biker guys used to wear as part of their colors, and maybe still do for all I know. I haven't seen any folks sporting biker colors about these parts recently. Whoever did that photo seemed to be doing work good enough to be used in a publicty still, as far as I can tell, and the photo didn't make anybody look thuggy at all. Even the sign was well lettered, and the little girl was cute as a bug. Doesn't mean they're not all machine-gun totting killers, but you'd really have to go a long way to prove it to me. Post many more photos like that, and you'll be behind them yourself. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I posted the pic to expand your knowledge of the 99% theme, which you claim you were not aware of. If I were to post tea party photos, would you be as lavish in your praise and be behind them yourself.....? I doubt it.. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Let's check out some of the signs to see what they are protesting and what they want changed...  "Even in a good economy,I'm unemployable" (why?) "Screw you, Mr. CEO (unless you're hiring)" (guess he only hates ceo's that don't hire him. The rest are ok) "We're like the tea party with fewer misspelling" (not in your wildest dreams, miss) "We demand sweeping unspecified change" (Well, that one says it all, doesn't it?)  (I have no idea what she is trying to say)  (nice sign by the Party for Socialism and Liberation)  "Rights for people, not corporations" (Ok, they don't want corporations to have any rights) "End wealth inequality" (in other words, give ME some!) "Venceremos! We will win." (with a nice pic of Che Guevera, one of the bloodiest killers in history)  (What happened to the no misspellings???) |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
 (like what??)  (it says "end corporate na mean personhood." someone will have to translate that one for me)  (ah, one of the benefactors)  THIS is the scariest one of all. I believe him. [This message has been edited by Balladeer (10-08-2011 04:39 PM).] |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. What I don’t see is anyone making clothes to wear on their backs or shoes on their feet. . . . . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I was not aware of it, Mike. I appreciate the posting. I didn't think you would support the wall street protestors. The misspellings they were talking about the first time were the kind of misspellings I'm prone to myself. I'm simply a poor speller, and I depend on spell-check, and the tea party folks are a prone to the bad spellings as I am. It's a widely spread flaw without much political coorelation, near as I can tell. A lot of us who were taught to "sound it out" as a strategy to pronounce and spell words have developed even worse spelling habits than usual, since I'm told that brain research tells us that learning how to spell is a visualization skill. One remedial method that seem to work is teaching poor spellers how to develop how to do clear internal visualizations, which is a skill I'm still very poor at. The misspelling that Mike is making fun of later is different. "Yer" is a dialect variation of "your" and the person who was writing it spelled the dialect variation correctly. Not, f0or example like spelling the word "were" as if it were "wir," which is a straight error and not a dialect variation. Most english teachers would probably pan "yer," of course, but if you ran across the same spelling in a Bill Mauldin cartoon — Willy and Joe, circa 1943 — everybody would know what it meant and be fine with it. The original no more misspellings was simply some jerk who was trying to suggest that Tea Party folks were illiterate. It's a stupid dig, on the same order of calling liberals "elites." Stereotyping at its worst or best, despending on how you want to think about it, I guess. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Ah, John, I don't see anybody making shoes for your feet or clothes to fit on your back, either. That's part of the point, isn't it; all those jobs went to China and other countries with globalization and the taking down of tariffs and trade barriers. Some of those people would be happy to be working those jobs, especially at union wages. But I think you were probably saying something that was a put down of these people who'd been put out of work while the guys in the boardrooms were scalling back the american jobs, giving themselves raises and tossing the Republicans large donations Were you about to say something about shiftless and lazy? I would've sworn I heard you subvocalizing something like that. |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
I was going to forego posting for Yom Kippur..... but...since when do we use Mad Magazine as a source? Did some of your Conservapublteaze send you those pics in an e-mail Mike? Haven't you been through the primer before (taught by uncas I believe) on photoshopped signage? |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
SInce I'm sure Alfred E. Neumann was in the crowd somewhere with a "What? Me worry" sign, I felt it appropriate.  Point taken....and the others??Happy Yom Kippur, btw.  |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Well, I'd love to have a long conversation with the lady in the red tanktop - about her sign ( astrological or other but the rest, aren't even sourced at all, which makes the one from Mad more credible than them, I'm afraid.....oh, and thanks for the well wishes, but, um...happy, and Yom Kippur are sort of contradictory.... but what do you suppose the odds are of my spending the day in fasting and prayer to try to persuade G_d not to give me the retribution I so deserve for having the nerve to have been born? any observence on my part at all is strictly a reflection on ancestors and mortality, and on how un-guilty I feel about my own existence....and that my Jewish heritage is just, yet, one more connection from which I am, disconnected... but hey - there's a Gwyneth Paltrow movie on |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
It would be simple to source them by just typing occupy wall street photos in Google but why bother? All dodging aside, i'm sure you know they are actual and there are hundreds more like them. The protestors are true rebels without causes. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
"If protestors showed up on your front lawn, trampling your grass and flowers, defecating in your yard and screaming obscenities while blocking your driveway, I'm not so sure you would be too supportive. I know I wouldn't be." Why, that happens every year. We call that Mardi Gras. And sometimes I'm with 'em, and other times, I just take my phone off the hook, put a blanket over my window and wait it out...as I curse the plastic beads that never seem to ever go away. Then comes Lent, Ash Wednesday, repentance, redemption and another year of madness. It's all very cyclic.  |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. "Michael Oher, offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens, was online on Wednesday night when his Twitter feed started filling up with tributes to Steve Jobs. A bewildered Oher tweeted: “Can somebody help me out? Who was Steve Jobs!” He was on his iPhone at the time. “Who was Steve Jobs? Well, he was a guy who founded a corporation and spent his life as a corporate executive manufacturing corporate products. So he wouldn’t have endeared himself to the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd, even though, underneath the patchouli and lentils, most of them are abundantly accessorized with iPhones and iPads and iPods loaded with iTunes, if only for when the drum circle goes for a bathroom break. The above is a somewhat obvious point, although the fact that it’s not obvious even to protesters with an industrial-strength lack of self-awareness is a big part of the problem. But it goes beyond that: If you don’t like to think of Jobs as a corporate exec (and a famously demanding one at that), think of him as a guy who went to work, and worked hard. There’s no appetite for that among those “occupying” Zuccotti Park. In the old days, the tribunes of the masses demanded an honest wage for honest work. Today, the tribunes of America’s leisured varsity class demand a world that puts “people before profits.” If the specifics of their “program” are somewhat contradictory, the general vibe is consistent: They wish to enjoy an advanced Western lifestyle without earning an advanced Western living. The pampered, elderly children of a fin de civilisation overdeveloped world, they appear to regard life as an unending vacation whose bill never comes due. . . in my new book I quote H. G. Wells’s Victorian Time Traveler after encountering far in the future the soft, effete Eloi: “These people were clothed in pleasant fabrics that must at times need renewal, and their sandals, though undecorated, were fairly complex specimens of metalwork. Somehow such things must be made.” And yet he saw “no workshops” or sign of any industry at all. “They spent all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making love in a half-playful fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were kept going.” The Time Traveler might have felt much the same upon landing in Liberty Square in the early 21st century, except for the bit about bathing: It’s increasingly hard in America to “see how things are kept going,” but it’s pretty clear that the members of “Occupy Wall Street” have no plans to contribute to keeping things going. Like Michael Oher using his iPhone to announce his ignorance of Steve Jobs, in the autumn of the republic the beneficiaries of American innovation seem not only utterly disconnected from but actively contemptuous of the world that sustains their comforts.” http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/279534/american-autumn-mark-steyn . |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
No. The issue isn't that corporations exist, or that companies or individuals make profit. The issue is Citizens United. K street. Corporate welfare. No bid contracts. Still no regulation of Wall Street -- thanks to the stupidity of the T toters, who rallied against TARP then voted in Scott Brown, who blocked the benksters having to pay back their TARP money. I'm thinking of starting my own super-pac. I think I'll call it --- 'Hey Morons learn the difference between being anti-corporate personhood and being anti-corporate fund.' |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Balladeer, You might want to resize that over-large image in post #30. It is easy to do: http://www.hiscript.com/HTML-Tutorial/HTML-Images/HTML-Image-Height-and-Width.html |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Thank you. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
After much thought, I came back to dismiss the inclusion of the phrase "defecating on your lawn" as comparably descriptive of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I can't think of one instance of that happening here in New Orleans during Carnival season. To suggest otherwise would be hyperbole. Port-o-lets (portable toilets) are code. I wouldn't wan't ya'll to think we were uncivilized or just plain stupid or somethin'.  As memory serves, every incidence of human feces found, that I can recall, could be attributed to a child or an act of revenge. (Just thought I'd throw two more cents in the...pot.) And btw, don't throw pennies to flambeaux carriers, they are the ones...carrying fire. Oh sniffs and shudders--the peasants are getting more revolting each year. Now somebody raise your hand if you know what the term "dead peasant" means in current corporate vernacular. Raise your hand high and you just might deprive the child behind you of a pair of plastic beads, made in China for less than the above mentioned two cents, utilizing child labor, btw, and resold here, during Carnival, at as much as eight bucks a pair... WARNING/DISCLAIMER: "The contents of the cake you are about to eat might contain a choking hazard in the form of the likeness of a plastic baby. Proceed at your own risk." Does anybody else remember that France helped to sponsor those brash upstarts during the American Revolution--even as their own people were acting out in desperation because they were ...ahem...HUNGRY? And Reb, I love you although I can still see both sides of the doubloon. (Um, doubloons are usually aluminum, and I've known people who brought them to the recycling center...) My apologies if the sarcasm sounds hostile, but this part of the country was used, abused and abandoned by both corporations and government a long time ago. End of Rant. (note to Bill Maher: this post is copyrighted and um, if you're willing to pay taxes as part of the upper echelon of the one percent? CUT ME A CHECK for my material.)  ciao time!  Mmmhmm. Yep. I can see both sides of the argument. |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
So Karen... let me just try to understand what part of the argument you 'see'. Are you suggesting that corporations should, for the first time in American history, be treated as though they are a person with a right to free speech, and that money is speech, therefore corporations should be able to pour as much money into political campaigning as they want re. 'Citizens United'...even though a corporation can't be executed by the Governor of Texas? |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
even though a corporation can't be executed by the Governor of Texas? LOL! You're overdosing on liberal talking points, LR. That makes about as much sense as Biden, saying "Who is Van Jones?" You gotta stretch that far to get a Perry dig in? |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
I am suggesting that corporations be held to the same responsibility as are individual citizens. To ask if I am "for" or "against" protestations is a trap of a question--ask me, peace by piece what it is they are protesting and I can answer--but don't spread a blanket of opinion on them, because if you do that, then you do it to me. And I'll protest. And so would you, lovie. So would you. It's very good to see you here. I like what I'm reading in this forum lately. <--hopes that's okay |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
ask me, peace by piece what it is they are protesting and I can answer That's the million dollar question. No one seems to know. One fellow said he wants all debt to be wiped off the books so everyone can start over. Another said he wants all free college education for all. Another wants all corporations declared illegal. I'm sure there must be some who want free pizzas for life. It's an event, that's all. Many are frustrated. Many are being paid to be there. Many are sent their by their unions. Many are socialists, carrying signs denouncing capitalism. If it were the 60's many would have flowers in their hair. It's a happening, that's all. It's a group that Pelosi asks God to bless (as if God would listen to her). It's a mob that has produced over 700 arrests. it's something to say to the grandkids in 30 years "I was there!" They are rebels without a cause. The frustrated ones are understandable but they offer no alternatives. They just protest... |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
Seriously? Government should be taken seriously. I'm totally serious when I suggest that EVERY TIME a local talk show airs--they need to remind people every fifteen minutes that they are NOT NEWS--oh-you-woulda-giggled-in-the-truck---I totally, literally slapped my husband upside his "haid"--nodding vigorous. He loved it. (You would too.) occupy Wall Street? lawd hard enough to occupy MY street. Ask me if I'm hungry nowwwwwwwwwwwwwww....  |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
Is it okay if I'm a self-confessed socialist? |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Hey, you don't need my permission...or approval. This country that they are protesting against gives you that choice.....and right. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
I want G.E. to pay back taxes. I really doooo.... |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I know what you mean. I want Buffet to pay his, too. I want people like Holder and Rangel who thought they could get away with tax evasion to go to jail. I also want that Red Ryder BB gun! |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
I happen to think we should begin on what we agree upon...like the above. I think that corporations that hire citizens of the United States should be allowed tax incentives. <--don't wince, I'm not done. I don't think that corporations that outsource jobs should be granted tax allowances when they outsource jobs to foreign countries. Do we agree on this? I exit, looking for Bohner's huge hammer... |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
whooops found it!!! *giggles* |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
 rightcheer! |
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Mistletoe Angel 
since 2000-12-17
Posts 32816Portland, Oregon |
I consider myself neither passionate nor dismissive of these waves of protests. I'm feeling much the same way toward these protests as I was toward the Tea Party protests in their nascent stages. I'm encouraged by any sort of spontaneous effort driven by a group of thoughtful, passionate individuals embodying the Margaret Mead philosophy.......but all the same little I've seen inspires me to go out myself and jump in.........for reasons already echoed here, and for the following three insights: * Firstly, this week's release of Occupy Wall Street's "official first statement" sums up my skepticism of the movement having any legs in a nutshell. I feel it encapsulates my hunch of this "movement" lacking staying power. There's a central pitch surely, which goes as follows: * “We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments.” * Fair enough. I can vouch for that. That said, the problem is, it is immediately followed by a laundry list of grievances..............which ultimately largely bury this important statement and it winds up not standing out explicitly. And don't get me wrong. It's important to illuminate, to put into perspective, how corporate influences have skewed the playing field for the rest of us who are trying to ensure we can still fulfill the fullest promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..........to which that prospect is growing dimmer by the day to many of us, and to our loved ones. The problem is, the grievances consume virtually the entire remainder of the statement. Meaning virtually the entire body of the text concerns itself with protesting, and none regarding how Occupy Wall Street is going to emerge an organizing force, a conscious movement, with slews of constructive aims and ideas on how we return to a nation that is people-powered, justice-oriented, and egalitarian-minded. The grievances also lack cohesion here; there's not enough connecting of the dots so it will paint a most stark, emotionally-affecting image to those who obviously are bearing the brunt of all these grievances, yet doesn't know how to navigate through the thick of it and can imagine what the alternatives are. * Secondly, the simple idea of "occupying" something comes across as somewhat off-putting and unsettling to me. I don't even know what the Portland contingent of the larger Occupy _______ "movement" is actually occupying, for one. Tom McCall Waterfront Park in downtown Portland is the focal point of the Occupy Portland chapter. Is that implying that Portland's city parks are representative of meritocracy gone amuck, above all else? As a symbolic sign of "solidarity" (whatever that means), it certainly can look exciting and inspiring.............but as a statement or collective intention, it just doesn't make sense to me. If anything, Tom McCall Waterfront Park represents so much that is special about Portland. We can do so much better about caring for the homeless and treating them with dignity here, but the park comes closer than most other parts of town in providing a preferred space for the homeless community here, for one. So to "occupy" this area, as opposed to..........say............the Wells Fargo headquarters downtown..........just sends out an uneasy mixed message, from my perspective. I much highly prefer the term "convergence". It has a positive, organic gathering quality to it, a comely connotation. "Occupy" comes across as defensive, as though the world around you is a battlefield. A simple once-over of the etymology of "occupy" confirms this. It is derived from the Latin word "occupare".........meaning to: "take over, seize, possess, occupy,".........and is an assemblage of ob (meaning "over") and the intensive form of capere (meaning "to grasp, seize"). According to historical records, "occupy" was actually an euphemism to "have sexual intercourse with,"..............and it observed a period between the early sixteenth and late seventeenth centuries where it fell out of favor in result. So what am I supposed to gather from the "Occupy ______" moniker other than that the uber-rich (or "1%") have hijacked the wealth of the other 99% of Americans and now it's time to take over, seize and possess ourselves, as long as I'm taking words too literally here? It makes me feel nervous and intimidated, more than anything, rather than engaged and inspired. * Finally..............it just stands to reason that we'll all be served better by focusing on asking for what we want, rather than what we don't. If I say I don't like something, like I did repeatedly during the greater part of the previous decade with regards to our foreign policy in particular..........that told you how I felt, but not what I want instead. It just seems the "Occupy _______" protests are much more about railing against so many things (noting their "first official statement again) than about standing strongly for many things, or at least for something. I'm sorry, but "solidarity" is NOT a tangible thing. "Solidarity", if anything, is more than just an insubstantial buzzword.........it's usually just one of numerous forms cultural groupthink assumes in my view. I'll reiterate at this time that as much as I'm happy to see at least some degree of passion on the streets, outside of people's homes, with peaceful results thus far.............so much of this movement seems to be so anti-minded. Mother Teresa said it so well: "I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there." There's still time for an effort of this sort to mature and begin reaching within and devoting its time and intention to what positive change it hopes to usher.........and should that time come, I'll open-mindedly consider the invitation. In the meantime, though..........I just feel these protests, along with the later Tea Party protests, have incited a lot of self-censorship more than anything. Where it's gotten to the point where many were pining for a "revolution" for so long, then suddenly they see a protest that has managed to hold up for a longer period of time than usual, and they just leap right into it without putting some personal reflection, some introspection, behind doing so. I've been candid (politely so) about my criticisms of these protests on Facebook event listings.....................and the most common response I've received thus far (in a polite tone) is along the lines of: "Well, that's the purpose of this whole rally. We're coming together, uniting, talking about this, formulating what all we want and how to go about it. One step at a time right? We can't ask for what we want until we unite, gather, share ideas, and move from there! This is just the beginning! Revolution doesn't happen overnight, mind you!". When I join any given protest or demonstration, I want to feel genuinely and emotionally engaged to it. I certainly felt just that way during my time visibly protesting the war in Iraq and denouncing assaults on various civil liberties. I certainly feel that way through my involvement in SlutWalk Portland and the Walk A Mile In Her Shoes events. I wasn't coaxed into either of those. I wasn't pressured into thinking if I didn't join them that that would somehow make me feel like less of a person, or insensitive to the concerns of others. I did so on my own volition.........because both causes feel true to my heart. Occupy _________, in contrast................I just don't feel this. The protests don't make me feel anything. They just leave me scratching my head and utter a sad, sympathetic sigh. * I came across rather blunt there, and I'll wrap up here by saying I'm certainly not putting anyone down when I express my honest thoughts and skepticism here about the broader effort and its crucial flaws from my perspective. Much like with the Tea Party protests, I think a strong majority of the sentiments permeating these ones are ones I can sympathize with and harbor pure intent. And so as critical as I am of Occupy _______ in its broader context, I'm not going to be dismissive of the sum of its parts either..........because I feel overshadowed by all the divisive "99% vs. 1%" and somewhat confrontational rhetoric...........I think we can all see parts of ourselves and our own worries, fears, anxieties and aspirations mirrored through their eyes collectively, much like with the Tea Party............and to put them down would prove a grave disservice for us all. * Namaste, lisping HIBISCUS "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other" Mother Teresa |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I don't think that corporations that outsource jobs should be granted tax allowances when they outsource jobs to foreign countries. Right on, lady. I'm with you there Noah! It's always a pleasure to see you, my friend! Whether we always agree or not, you always provide a lot of insight in your replies..and do it well. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Well, the dems like them...which may come back to haunt them. "God bless them for their spontaneity." Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader and a Democrat from California, said of the demonstrators. The House's No. 4 Democrat, John Larson of Connecticut, went further. "The silent masses aren't so silent anymore," Larson said earlier this week. "They are fighting to give voice to the struggles that everyday Americans are going through. While I don't condone their every action, I applaud their standing up for what they believe in." How about that? Surely, then, he supported the Tea Party for standing up for what they believed in...not. And Krugman, a New York Times columnist and key liberal opinion-shaper, wrote Friday that "we may, at long last, be seeing the rise of a popular movement that, unlike the Tea Party, is angry at the right people." Interesting comment. The law-abiding tea party were evil but the unruly occupiers with no real agenda is a "popular movement by the people"..all because Klugman feels they are after the right people, i.e., non-liberals. Don't look now, fellow, but you are in their cross-hairs, too. President Obama has been cautiously positive about the Occupy events. "The protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works," he said during a Thursday press conference. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/eric-cantor-says-wall-street-prot esters-mobs-democrats-191017569.html These are all people who lambasted tea-partiers. One need to look no further to see how laughable their double-standard is. Obama is spending his days appealing to "the people" to get his jobs bill passed. He encourages this type of behavior and, I feel, behind the scenes he is supporting it, working hand in hand with Soros and the unions. I don't think he has any objections to civil unrest at all, whether it is peaceful or not. Getting his way is all that matters, regardless of what it may do to the country. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
If those people didn't have double-standards, Michael, they wouldn't have ANY standards at all!  |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: If your quote is accurate, and it may not be for all I know, Krugman says nothing about Liberals or Conservatives here. It appears that you are making a political generalization from an economic premise; and, while they are often connected, they often are not. Mr. Soros and the Brothers Koch are all wealthy folks, for example, but their politics are widely separated, aren’t they? While I believe that Mr. Krugman is probably a Liberal personally, his comment here seems to be addressing a common source of frustration in the country. The frustration is common to both sides of the political spectrum, left and right, and that is the suspicion that a large economic con game was played on the public by a lot of the banking and insurance and brokerage houses in the country. Those folks, a lot of us feel, seem to have made a lot of money over the last ten years or so at the expense of a lot of working and middle class folks and have left us holding the financial bag. Mr. Krugman seems to be saying, to my ears, that these demonstrators are steamed at the folks who’ve walked away with huge profits and left a large part of the rest of the country holding the bag. Their anger is against the folks who have profited in ways that seem, at least on the surface, unfairly, and I hear Dr. Krugman saying that this stuff ought to be investigated. I think the Democrats are cautious — and if you actually read what you’re quoting instead of what you think you’re quoting, at least from the President, the enthusiasm is at best, measured — because the Democrats have not been pushing any investigative efforts were hard at all. They should be. The Republicans, if anything, are even more cautious, and at times it seems as though they are colluding both with the Democrats and with the financial community to keep the facts uninvestigated almost entirely. The whole set of comments about the Tea Party, as far as I’m concerned, is almost entirely off the subject. The Tea Party is a populist party and it has no clear Economic Policy. I haven’t seen any evidence that it understands the need for a Macroeconomic policy for the government and that such a line of action is distinct from what a company needs to do to pursue its economic growth or what a household needs to ensure its survival. It constantly conflates business experience and goverment experience, and imagines that the two of them are equivalent. Strategies for dealing with economic downturns in a family, a business, and an economy, on the contrary are not the same, and confusing them can be a disaster. In my opinion, “going after the right people” would mean hiring a large staff of competent investigators and having a close look at the books of the various companies involved in the financial problems of the last decade. It would involve hiring at least as many investigators as were hired as we used in looking into the much smaller Savings and Loan crisis in the 1980’s, and it would involve bringing at least as many charges against people that proved to be guilty of the same level of mismanagement, fraud and wrong-doing. You may have noticed, but we have managed to let this whole affair skate without bringing major charges and without sending many people to jail. I think those are the folks that are “the right people” that Dr. Krugman is talking about. I think that the folks who want something done about those guilty persons have nothing whatsoever to do with Liberal or Conservative, though it would serve both parties, Democrats and Republicans, very well if the issue could be divided that way. There are people with large amounts of money who’d rather not have the events of the last ten years investigated, and I think they write checks to both parties. Lest there be any doubts here, you bet I’m still a Democrat, and a bit further left than Liberal at that, and I’ll be happy to fight about that when I think that’s actually the issue. But here, I’d have to say it’s not. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Isn't it a bit dishonest to suggest they are against corporations when they are against the greed and corruption in corporations, banks, etc? I have never yet seen any of them saying they are against corporations themselves. So far all your comments seem an attempt to ridicule or dismiss them. Is that all you are interested in? |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
I thought of a great name for them in similar fashion to the left designating us as 'teabaggers': FREEBAGGERS (since a lot of them are calling for 'free' stuff from the government!) It's not quite as insulting as the former since it doesn't have a perverted sexual tinge to it, but I thought it was funny! |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. I think it was Thomas Sowell who said blaming greed is like blaming gravity for a plane falling out of the sky. We expect corporations to maximize their profits. If they charge too much or produce a product not worth the price, competition will put them out of business. I would need an example of present ongoing corruption to comment. However I think government, ( which does have the characteristics of a monopoly), favoritism and coercion corrupting the marketplace deserves a placard or two . . . . |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Ess, with all due respect, Uncas began this thread by asking us our opinions of the "occupy Wall Street" protests. My entries have all been directed at answering his question. If my comments seem to ridicule or dismiss them, there's a good reason for that - I find them ridiculous and dismissable. At the Occupy Sacremento gathering yesterday, the leader of the organization was asked by a local reporter what the mission of the gathering was. The fellow said that it was a little vague right now but he has set up a group who would determine why they were there and announce it soon. What part of that does one not find to be ridiculous??? That is not limited to Sacramento. No one in any of the gatherings, including Wall Street, has been able to answer that question. They are simply protesting. A New York Post reporter was offered marijuana for 15 bucks or heroin for 10 by an entrepreneur going through the crowd offering his wares. There were also reports of others passing out free condoms. What does one not find ridiculous there?? For these groups that have not announced their goals, Nancy Pelosi ask God to bless them and she knows that they will reach their goals (which they have not been able to name). That makes HER ridiculous, which was really not necessary, since she has had that distinction for some time. I have never yet seen any of them saying they are against corporations themselves. Is that a fact? Then you didn't see the signs that claim.. RIGHTS FOR THE PEOPLE, NOT THE CORPORATIONS and CORPORATIONS RUN THE COUNTRY. LET'S DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. There are other signs denouncing capitalism (of which corporations are an integral part) . Nothing against the corporations? REALLY? If there is anything which does not point to ridiculous, I'd sure like to hear it. If there is any reason why their actions should not be dismissed as being nothing more than the ravings of fools with no solutions of their own, please share them with me. It's an event - a happening - a Woodstock without the music. To try to paint it as having eny more signifigance than that is what I would call.....yep, ridiculous. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/279438/green-jobs-are-national-scanda l-deroy-murdock?page=1 QED There are also government subsidies to farmers that now limit and raise the cost of food on the world’s table . . . Are farmers to blame? . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Might be, Denise, if you could actually connect your notion of freeloaders with the people doing the demonstrating. In the meantime, you don't seem to have noticed that you appear long on accusations and short on proof. Maybe there is evidence that the demonstrators are freeloaders and I haven't seen it in any of your postings, Denise; but I haven't seen a lot of published evidence of what the demographics of these demonstrators may be. "Freebaggers" was your term, and you indicated you didn't intend it to be, to quote you directly, "quite as insulting as ['teabaggers'] since it doesn't have a perverted sexual tinge to it," but it apparently amused you anyway. quote: I believe I have you in context here, but if not, please let me know. I will, however, be puzzled as to how that might have happened. The amusement in the term "tea-bagger," as I remember it, was in watching a large number of repressed and in large part anti-homosexual people walking around with tea-bags stapled to their faux-staw hats, absolutely clueless about having signed up to become the butt of a joke. It was not in going out of one's way to create a joke about them, which would have not been funny at all, simply crass and cruel. Sort of like the difference between seeing some poor schmo slip on a banana peel and tripping him, you know? I think that there is some evidence that republicans and Tea Party folk tend to be older Americans, on the whole. I'd have to check into that to be sure, but I believe that some of that research has been done on the demographics there. Before you feel entitled to suggest that the demonstrators are freeloaders, you might consider what you mean. The term "freeloader," to be sure, was my suggestion. Perhaps you meant something else. I was simply suggesting it as a more concrete and directly definable word. Should you choose to substitute another, that would be fine with me. I don't consider people on social security to be freeloaders, for example. People on unemployment have paid into their unemployment insurance account and are getting benefits paid out from those plans which both they and their former employers have paid into; and which cover them when they have been fired without cause. AFDC and WIC are in support of families and in support of young children. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I haven't seen it in any of your postings, Denise; but I haven't seen a lot of published evidence of what the demographics of these demonstrators may be. No problem.... Though a few representatives of minority groups have appeared among the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters in New York City, photos and videos of the left-wing mini-throngs indicate they suffer from a serious lack of diversity. And the protesters themselves told The Daily Caller on Tuesday that they are conscious of the issue, if not the inconsistency it demonstrates. A 40-photo Washington Post slideshow showing hundreds of angry protesters in New York and other cities includes no more than 15 clearly identifiable minority protesters, and just six African-Americans. The rest of the protesters shown are white, and most are male. In 26 photos from San Francisco and Chicago gatherings posted on OccupyTogether.org, only one person from a minority group is clearly visible, and it’s unclear whether he is a protester or a bystander. Minority groups are similarly underrepresented in photos and videos posted on OccupyWallSt.org, the self-described “unofficial de facto online resource for the ongoing protests happening on Wall Street.” Malkin and Gainor also told TheDC that while news organizations have failed to report on these protesters’ lack of minority representation, tea party rallies attracted accusations of racism for what some reporters perceived was a similar lack of racial diversity. “The liberal media will only engage in racial bean-counting of protest crowds when it serves their political ends: Namely, painting the Right as homogenous and non-inclusive,” Malkin said. “We heard endless derision about the tea party’s lack of skin-color diversity from Hollywood and the national press. But not a peep about the Abercrombie & Fitch-meets-Apple central casting mob swamping lower Manhattan.” Gainor added that mainstream media representatives “only see what they want to see.” He said reporters scoured tea party rallies for evidence of racism, while failing to notice how “white” the left-wing crowds are. http://news.yahoo.com/99-occupy-wall-street-organizers-look-minorities-200105971.html |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I thought the N.R. article seemed well-researched and to the point, and I thought it raised some interesting questions as to how the selection was made for which companies should be selected for aid. I thought the article's point, however, was that green energy alternatives shouldn't be funded, and that seemed to me to be a mistake. Each of the examples cited seemed a clear case of a cat in a blender. It's nobody's pet any more. Each case seemed to be headed in that direction from the beginning, and that's particularly disturbing, though no more disturbing than the occasional Republican free enterprise energy fiasco, and drastically less disturbing than some. You can probably spell ENRON as well as I can, and the addition of all these problems together doesn't even total the price of admission to the damages done by ENRON. ENRON doesn't make any of this Democratic disaster one bit better, though it makes me feel better simply to suggest that this screw up isn't the worst set of choices since the disposable paper towel submarine hull. Disposable! Recycleable! Environmentally sound! What cound go wrong? Never mind. We still need to fund green energy and green energy research. Having some guys with a somewhat better notion of business sense would help. Thanks for the article. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Those on the left didn't go out of their way to create a joke about the Tea Party, Bob, and it was only funny because the Tea Party had unknowningly signed up to become the butt of a joke, and that those on the left who started using the term did not mean to be crass and cruel? Okie-Dokie! The demographics from what I have seen appear to be misguided college-age students being taken advantage of by communist and union organizations, with a shout-out of support from the Administration AND Hugo Chavez! But hey, aren't we all socialists/communists now?! They also appear to be 99.99% White. Ooops. Does that mean they are RACIST?! I didn't say the 'Occupiers' were freeloaders, though some may well be. According to an ad in Craigs List some are even being paid to be there. So I guess for some of them it's a temporary job...or according to Nancy Pelosi's dictionary....a spontaneous grass roots movement...lol. A couple of people interviewed said they were there mostly for the free sex and cheap drugs. That would roughly equate with the number of people that I saw in pictures at Tea Party events wearing straw hats with tea bags dangling from them. What made me think of 'freebaggers' was that many were asking for 'free' stuff from the government, and because it rhymes with 'teabaggers'. I said that it wasn't as insulting as 'teabaggers' I didn't say anything about my intent, one way or the other! But yes, it did amuse me! |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Here's another lesson on how to be hypocritical without really trying.. http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/10/obama-attacks-banks-while-raking-in-wall-street-dough/ |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: More from the article you were quoting, Mike. I'd suggest to you that what you have is still problematic. The Daily Caller quotes Ms. Malkin as "Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin," which doesn't make her wrong or mean that her comments aren't interesting, but do mean that Patrick Bruner's comment was probably closer to reality when "he said in an email to TheDC. quote: Ms. Malkin's observations may be accurate, but they are not research demographics, which need a different kind of sampling. For example, in looking at the brief selection of photos on the previous page, I notice that most of them are actually photos of individuals or couples in sharp focus or individuals or couples in focus in a blurred crowd. These photos, for the most part, do nor offer us information about the crowd, only what the photographer found interesting, striking, distinctive and possibly attractive. In the single photo that I found that was actually of a crowd I found a male African American and a female African American and a distinctively African American hand sticking in from the right frame of the picture, for a total of three African Americans in a single photograph offered at random as being the single in focus crowd scene available for me to look at right here. I also saw what appeared to be an ethnically Chinese guy. I couldn't tell if there were native-American or Latin folk there. This photo could be a curve breaker or it could be more representative of the curve. We don't know because we don't have a decent sample size and we haven't set up the proper criteria from screening the photos. This is why I said earlier that I didn't think we had the demographics available, and this is why I still believe that the statement is true. It doesn't mean Mike has come to a wrong conclusion. I don't know if Mike has come to a wrong conclusion or the right conclusion. I do know that what he's basing his conclusion on is junk data, any conclusion based on it would be correct pretty much by accident, at least scientifically speaking. Perhaps somebody can correct me, and I'm running on misinformation here, but I'm pretty sure I'm on the money. I've gotten a better understanding of what the 99 percenter means now. It's a description of anybody who's not in the economic top 1% who own so much of the property and economy and who pay, relatively speaking, an unfairly light burden in taxes. I too would feel more comfortable if the proportion of the population at these demonstrations was more obviously well distributed, by the way, by race and gender and age. That's one of the reasons a decent set of demographics would be so useful. I'd like to know if my perceptions and the reality of the situation were in agreement or not. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Craigs List Ad: http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/gov/2618821815.html |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Patrick Gaspard's organization (he's the 'Karl Rove' of the Obama Administration) is behind the Craigs List Ad. I'm SHOCKED I tell you, simply SHOCKED! Actually nothing shocks me anymore. Not since we entered the Twilight Zone.http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/10/shocker-obamas-top-political-advisor-directly-linked-to-occupy-wall-street-protests/ |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
'Unfortunately, we have a very high turnover rate, and nobody as of yet has come up with official diversity related statistics for us.' A poor effort at CYA. I see no "junk data" at all and pics bear it out. I've seen over 120 pics that all bear it out. I wonder if they would have offered such excuses while branding tea party gatherings as "racist". I find it unlikely. DOn't be shocked, Denise. Everyone knows the Obama administration is supporting these "occupations". They are too dumb to not make it obvious. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: The ones who started using the term were the folks in the Tea Party, Denise. You tried to take over a piece of American history for yourselves, which is understandable and good propaganda. Nobody asked you to start walking around displaying tea bags stapled to your hats and to your lapels. I myself wouldn’t have been in the know enough to have warned you against it. It was a slow motion public relations nightmare. Nobody set you up for it, but once you were there, darn it, it was funny. As a group, I can’t think of another that seemed as upset by the gay community, and to see the Tea Party make an enormous blunder of this sort was simply a gift that kept on giving, like that mistakes that teachers sometimes make in classes of adolescents that will set the class off with gales of self perpetuating laughter. After a while the class for the most part would rather cut their own throats than continue laughing, but there it is again, Ms. Freezebinder actually said that thing about Tarpons in public. Then she said that thing about “Are you going to keep laughing all period, and I just wish I could crawl under the table, except I can’t stop laughing.” Nobody tossed the foolish banana peel under the feet of the Tea Party, Denise. They stepped proudly in the thing themselves, secure in the knowledge that it was the right thing to do. And that’s another reason why it ended up being funny. quote: I dealt with the demographics issue at a little length in my above response to Mike. I speculate that the categories you propose would be interesting to try to quantify. There would be a fascinating question of inter-rater reliability to deal with. How would you propose developing standards so that all your raters would agree on what a “misguided college-aged student” might be, for example? quote: I voiced my problems with that question in my reply to Mike. My assumption that your figure of 99.99% is hyperbole, since I have yet to see any actual demographics, as I mentioned above, and the worry that Mr. Bruner voiced seems genuine enough. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting question, and it should be answered, which is why I suggest the need for actual demographic study so that some outreach might be done if there is a problem. What’s your thought on the matter? Do you think these folks are actually racist, or are you furious at the treatment you feel the Tea Party has gotten and welcome a chance to turn the question on the people whom you feel have treated the Tea Party so unfairly? That would be assuming, of course, that these protestors and the previous critics are the same people. When I say “or” in this case, it suggests that there are only two possibilities, and that is certainly not the case at all, it is merely rhetorical impoverishment on my part and an unwillingness to put this note through several extra drafts to iron out these places where my bad writing pokes its nose under the tent wall and sneezes inelegantly. The protestors seem to me to be more uncertain and indecisive and angry at the economic jam we’re in and at the part that they feel some of the banks and the brokers and the insurance companies and the financial industry — or the more unregulated and mismanaged part of it at least — have played in all this. If that is the crux of their discontent, then I must say I am in basic agreement, and I would suspect that you may have some agreement with at least some of the things they’re getting at too. We really have been unkind to the pooch in the country over the past ten years, and I think that both parties have had a part in it. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, so I won’t even try to say any more; I’m simply interested in what you have to say about this. I simply don’t think it’s a matter of liberal and conservative at all. quote: I made of point of saying “Freeloader” was my word; and you’re right to correct me if that’s not what you meant. Thank you. I don’t know what you mean about the ad in Craig’s list, but I’d ask you to use your own good thinking on that for a moment. An ad means that somebody has paid a publisher money to say something they wouldn’t have published for free. When I publish a poem or an article I want some sort of payment, money or copies, in return; I don’t pay somebody else unless they’re doing something for me. So if there are people being paid to be there, I want to join them. Let me know where I can find these people so I can get paid to do something like that in my city. I’ve been thinking of doing it for free, but the possibility of getting paid has made the whole thing absolutely irresistible. Just let me know where I can collect my dough, and I be there, and I’ll see if I can bring along some old radical friends and maybe we can make a party of it. If you can find the address where they’re handing out this free money, why don’t you show up their, collect the money and go home, and bring your tea party friends, collect the dough and donate it to the tea party candidate of your choice. In fact, if you really believe a rumor like that one, you could probably fund your whole party on that money; go for it. Think how sweet it would be to elect somebody from your neck of the political spectrum from money passed out the international conspiracy of people who hate anything really really American. quote: Yeah, yeah, sure; lotta darn good that does me. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
My mistake, Denise, the ad looks genuine, but it is an ad for organizers and not for folks simply showing up to protest. You were a touch misleading. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Organizers works. The administration is putting out ads to hire people to organize...that is more palatable? Unions and other organizations are paying the participants. That more palatable, too? It's hardly a grass roots movement when Obama,'s people are doing the hiring. |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Mike, It's only a pejorative if there's something wrong with capitol punishment-a reputation sizzlin Ricky has worked long and hard to earn -- so why would you suggest my mentioning it is a 'dig'? Does a corporation have a right to get married? vote? get a drivers liscence? Why should it then, have the right to free speech? Can it be convicted of a crime and serve time? How, exactly, is a corporation a person? |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
"It's hardly a grass roots movement when Obama,'s people are doing the hiring." I need some more info on this please. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
The Tea Party name came from Rick Santelli during his 'rant' against the proposed paying of people's mortgages by taxpayers, Bob. The pejorative 'teabaggers' was courtesy of someone from MSNBC. Can't recall his name at the moment. If you want to be paid, Bob, use the contact info in the ad. That's probably the easiest way to go about it. I don't think Patrick will be taking replies to the ad directly in his White House office, but maybe you can try that too! |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Occupy Fort Lauderdale wrote: "And the entire base of broad freedoms in this country from groups of people who are forced to break laws in order to win. The entire middle class was built on workers virtually occupying private workplaces. That is how a job that was a sweatshop job in 1925 turned into those rhetorically useful "good jobs" that everyone complains got sent over seas. Well, they did get sent over seas, but they were sent over precisely because they were so good for the workforce. The womens movement consistently was forced to break laws, agitate, cause trouble, etc.. in order to win. And obviously the civil rights movements constantly hit private targets day in and day out. The lesson here is that in order to win---you must mobilize your forces, know whose side you are on, etc.. and then tactically do things in such a way that you prevent the normal functioning of society until your demands are met. We don't have our base of support large enough yet in order to line this up. But once we do, all the protesting and demonstrating in the world won't mean much until more decisive direct action is taken. That's how it worked in each of the 3 above historical examples, and I don't think it will be much different this time...at least if history is to be our guide on matters like this." ...and so the stage is being set on why breaking the law with regards to the demonstrations is justifiable and right. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
LR, first of all, your query as to whether corporations have a right to free speech was directed at Karen, not me. As far as your dig is concerned, playing dumb is not one of your strong points. get married vote get a driver's license Be executed by the governor of Texas Which one of those seems just a little off the wall? That "who, me??" look ain't making it. You saw an opportunity to slip in a shot at Perry and you took it....no big deal. Slipping politics in is not a new adventure for you but, trying to pretend you didn't is a little, uh, silly. |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Again you deflect and avoid. Denise, you're not correct in your recollection. http://web.archive.org/web/20090315082733/http://www.reteaparty.com/ |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
“Unfortunately, the country has been wasting this winter of recuperation. Nothing of consequence has been achieved over the past two years. Instead, there have been a series of trivial sideshows. It’s as if people can’t keep their minds focused on the big things. They get diverted by scuffles that are small, contentious and symbolic. Take the Occupy Wall Street movement. This uprising was sparked by the magazine Adbusters, previously best known for the 2004 essay, “Why Won’t Anyone Say They Are Jewish?” — an investigative report that identified some of the most influential Jews in America and their nefarious grip on policy. If there is a core theme to the Occupy Wall Street movement, it is that the virtuous 99 percent of society is being cheated by the richest and greediest 1 percent. This is a theme that allows the people in the 99 percent to think very highly of themselves. All their problems are caused by the nefarious elite. Unfortunately, almost no problem can be productively conceived in this way. A group that divides the world between the pure 99 percent and the evil 1 percent will have nothing to say about education reform, Medicare reform, tax reform, wage stagnation or polarization. They will have nothing to say about the way Americans have overconsumed and overborrowed. These are problems that implicate a much broader swath of society than the top 1 percent. They will have no realistic proposal to reduce the debt or sustain the welfare state. Even if you tax away 50 percent of the income of those making between $1 million and $10 million, you only reduce the national debt by 1 percent, according to the Tax Foundation. If you confiscate all the income of those making more than $10 million, you reduce the debt by 2 percent. You would still be nibbling only meekly around the edges. . . . The Occupy Wall Street movement may look radical, but its members’ ideas are less radical than those you might hear at your average Rotary Club. Its members may hate capitalism. A third believe the U.S. is no better than Al Qaeda, according to a New York magazine survey, but since the left no longer believes in the nationalization of industry, these “radicals” really have no systemic reforms to fall back on. . . The thing about the current moment is that the moderates in suits are much more radical than the pierced anarchists camping out on Wall Street or the Tea Party-types. Look, for example, at a piece Matt Miller wrote for The Washington Post called “The Third Party Stump Speech We Need.” Miller is a former McKinsey consultant and Clinton staffer. But his ideas are much bigger than anything you hear from the protesters: slash corporate taxes and raise energy taxes, aggressively use market forces and public provisions to bring down health care costs; raise capital requirements for banks; require national service; balance the budget by 2018. Other economists, for example, have revived the USA Tax, first introduced in 1995 by Senators Sam Nunn and Pete Domenici. This would replace the personal income and business tax regime with a code that allows unlimited deduction for personal savings and business investment. It’s a consumption tax through the back door, which would clean out loopholes and weaken lobbyists. Don’t be fooled by the clichés of protest movements past. The most radical people today are the ones that look the most boring. It’s not about declaring war on some nefarious elite. It’s about changing behavior from top to bottom. Let’s occupy ourselves. " http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/opinion/the-milquetoast-radicals.html?_r=1&ref=opini on . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
One of the virtues of a good Liberal Paper is that to allows decent air time to people whose views dissagree with the basic editorial stance of the paper. Brooks is always thoughtful and entertaining, and frequently stimulating to read, and he certainly has more than earned his place in The New York Times, which has tried to give good space to conservatives. I'm glad you gave me a chance to have a look at a well reasoned alternative point of view. I'm not sure that I'd want to depend on The Tax Foundation for my information, but to be fair I'm not sure I've given much thought abou where I might find neutral information about such stuff. |
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icebox Member Elite
since 2003-05-03
Posts 4383in the shadows |
New video with "protestors" from James O'Keefe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEq5w2-6X14 |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
James O'keefe? Really? Really? Try this one instead: http://vimeo.com/30081785 |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
How was I wrong in my recollection, LR? Santelli mentioned having a Chicago Tea Party in July at the end of the clip. Other gatherings around the country took place just prior to that in April 2009, I think some even earlier than that. I believe from the date that I could determine of the 'rant' it was in February, and it is believed that his expression of outrage was what really jump-started the Tea Party movement. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
So now the protestors are marching on the CEO's houses. What a novel idea...oh, wait. It's not! The SEIU did the same thing,,,and so did ACORN while Obama was training them. Birds of a feather....? |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Imagine that, Michael. Nothing new under the sun. Karen, here is the Obama connection through his top political advisor, the one whose organziation placed the Craigs List ad: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/10/shocker-obamas-top-political-advisor-directly-linked-to-occupy-wall-street-protests/ |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. I’ve noticed that some have beards and some wear glasses so maybe they know what they’re talking about. . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: I thought you might understand if I printed out the first paragraph on smear campaign, smear tactic or simply smear from Wikipedia. There is considerably more there, of course. quote: There are people who admire a smear campaign. I think both political parties use them, but I find it difficult to understand the utility here.Those who already agree with you will be busy nodding, those who disagree will be busy shaking, and I’m unclear what you hope to gain in terms of the discussion. Of course the protestors are marching on the CEO’s houses, in the same way that a whole generation of protesters marched on the pentagon and on the White House, and in the same way a whole generation of vets marched on Washington to get their WWI bonus money. I’d say that saying that marching on somebody’s house or somebody’s center of power is pretty natural. Didn’t the Children in the Children’s crusade march first to Rome? It’s part of the idealistic impulse, to take your beef to the head honcho; to give the boss a piece of your mind. It’s part of the belief that maybe if the guy actually understands what the situation really is, he’ll do something to make it right. The boss can’t really be all that bad. He’s human. He’s gotta have a heart someplace. Hoover sent in the cavalry, and pretty much physically wiped out a lot of sick, hungry and unemployed vets. The Pope sent the kids to Jerusalem. Most of them died on the way or were sold into slavery. Kids and hungry vets, among the many others that fit the description of the people you attempted to slime for reasons I haven’t yet fathomed. By hooking them up with community organizers and union members, which you seem to assume that the rest of us find as distasteful as you do. I’ve had good and bad experiences with unions. I’ve also had good and bad experiences with administrations and businesses. quote: Nope. From my look at the ad, it appears there is a separate local political party that is doing the funding. This doesn’t feel entirely kosher to me, since that’s a lot of money to be funneling into organization for a party nobody’d heard of a few days back, so I’m very curious where that source may be. I think it’s being handled very badly, not even as well as the Koch brothers funding for the Tea Party start up, and that was pretty direct and easily traced. So I really want to know. I don’t think that an attachment to the democratic party is very smart, and I think that President Obama’s connection is quite tepid, as is the connection of every other Democratic big-wig that I’ve seen. I think they want a way to disengage if it goes bad, and they’re uncertain exactly what the purpose of the demonstrators may be. It may be unions are helping with funding, but the unions are pitiful shells of what they once were, and are under attack. I’m uncertain how much they can contribute. “Other organizations” is simply another way of saying what I’m saying; you haven’t a clue. You still haven’t gotten the point if you can allow yourself to toss in that final sentence. How long after the demonstrations appeared did the ad appear? Five days, a week, two weeks? Pretend to think like an intelligence analyst as a role playing game and see what you can extrapolate from the situation. Think of it as an exercise in developing fiction writing skills for plotting: Being a writer gives you all sorts of liberties to play these sorts of games. If there are as many protesters in the street as the newsies claim, it’s not going to be a paid group. Especially not in October across the country, and especially not at 350.00 to 650.00 dollars per week. Most if not all of those folks are probably volunteers and they’ve been drawn out — probably — by anger at the economic situation. You yourself are angry at the economic situation. You blame the Democrats, and that solves your problem. These folks are angry at the Democrats and the Republicans. That explains the fact that they don’t know what to say; because they think that both the parties are giving them bogus answers. That’s probably true, as far as I’m concerned. If you’re a Democratic big-wig, then, what do you want to do? If it were me, I’d want to get out front and channel that energy in a direction I could use. I wouldn’t want these folks to figure out they were fed up with the way things were going from both sides of the aisle, which might be looking as though they were singing from what appeared to be remarkably similar hymnals. I would want to channel that energy back into the traditional party argument and I would want people to forget that checks written by many of the same hands were financing the long running soap opera in Washington, DC I would want to get middle management types in those demonstrations to channel those energies the ways I wanted them to go, to continue the deadlock, and to keep the gravy train on track. That’s why the ad is for non-policy positions. They already have a pretty good idea what the policy should be; and that’s why the jobs are for folks with skill sets in middle management social organizing. They don’t want these bozos to be thinking for themselves. I don’t see the Republicans as wanting anything particularly different, since the right wing has been busy keeping the country in a state of deadlock as long as the Democrats have. I think the protests are a grass roots movement that hasn’t found its focus yet, and that both parties are trying to scuttle it or direct it to their advantage. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: I'm entirely confused about who you're talking about here. Are you upset about Hasidic Jews, Memonites, Chas Bono and some of his friends, observant Muslim men, the Smith Brothers, Abraham Lincoln, Grant or one of the bearded ladies at the circus that I had disturbing dreams about when I was a kid? I wear glasses that are fifteen years out of date, which may be one of the reasons that I hate to shave. What are you talking about? What's goin' on, John? Don't be so gnomic, Comic. |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Because Denise, it was the Tea Parties that started 'T-baggin' washington, as the wayback machine shows. Your other facts are accurate though Bob, I think John is trying to equate the OWLS wit hippies, because we know how innefective the hippies were at affecting social and political change, whoops.... there was that war they got us out of, civil rights, womens rights..... other than that, yanno, they didn't do much. dirty hippies. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Oooooh. Them, and those beatnick folks. Now I get you. With the splash on paint and stuff that a six year old could do is what my grandpa used to say, and the poetry you couldn't even rhyme and din't mean anything. He shoulda just sed so. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. I heard on NPR coming into work this morning that 80% of US manufacturers surveyed say they are having difficulty finding skilled labor for their open positions, (this in a time of 9% unemployment). . |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
LR, I was having trouble loading the Wayback Machine so I clicked on the link that said Impatient? The only thing that came up for me was the video, so I still don't know what you are talking about. Did someone actually say that they were going to 'T-bag' Washington? If so I missed it. Can you share a link for it? |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Where did Uncas go? |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Maybe participating in the Occupy Piccadilly event???  |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
 Despite his rhetorical attacks on Wall Street, a study by the Sunlight Foundation’s Influence Project shows that President Barack Obama has received more money from Wall Street than any other politician over the past 20 years, including former President George W. Bush. In 2008, Wall Street’s largesse accounted for 20 percent of Obama’s total take, according to Reuters. When asked by The Daily Caller to comment about President Obama’s credibility when it comes to criticizing Wall Street, the White House declined to reply. Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/10/10/obama-attacks-banks-while-raking-in-wall-street-dough/#ixzz1aamidJAk |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
You might think of it that way, and it might be true for all I know. To present it as the truth or anything other than party serving bilgewater seems to be a a serious plea that your readers put aside all ability to think of other possible and even more likely reasons for this. 1} Wall Street had seen where all that time in Republican Hands had gotten the economy, and they were throwing their money behind the Democrats in hopes of at least arresting the free fall. Exactly how much money explains how very concerned they were. 2) Perhaps you've forgotten exactly whom President Obama and Vice President Biden were running against? Now given the fact that McCain was actively presenting himself as a guy who was looking for a fight in Iran and possibly in other places across the globe as well, and his running mate was (no description here is, I think, needed) Sarah Palin, I'm reasonably sure that most wall street folks thought that we were better off being governed by actual people than a couple of fugitives from a Warner Brother's cartoon. 3) Is it possible that the Republicans might have lost in terms of votes as well as dollars? Might that not have been as badly? Therefore, the number three reason I have to offer here is that Wall Street, like almost everybody else, saw just how great a job the Republicans had done over the previous eight years and funded accordingly. They weren't voting to buy Democrats; they were voting to get rid of Republicans. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Speaking about the previous 8 years simply offers the same dishonesty that has been used many times because it ignores the first six years of those 8 which were quite prosperous and also ignores the fact that the last two years coincided with when the democrats took control of congress. I'll agree that Wall Street threw money at Obama, looking for the change he was preaching, but I doubt they gave so much to him so that he would come out and trash them. I assume he is not expecting as much from them this time around or he may be quite disappointed. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I do believe that your response, Mike, is a pretty straightforward party line response to the economic question when it's raised. That would be, "Wasn't there, don't know anything about it, it was the Democrats anyway." You have a perfectly understandable right to assert that point of view, and to suggest that must have been the reason that McCain and Company won the astonishing victory they did in '08. That and President Bush's sincere efforts to put social security into the hands of the public. Tell me, as an aside, where you would have invested your profits from all that social security money after it had been returned to you the way President Bush wanted it to be? Tell me, how much money would you have made by now? Just askin'? Those of us with some sense of history might have some disagreement with your memory of the way you recall things, but you have a right to see things your way. I do notice that you've managed to leave the other two fairly obvious points untouched, though. The issue isn't whether you agree with them or not, however; I think the issue is whether the public will keep them in mind. I happen to think them obvious, but the Republicans are much better at spin and message control on the whole than the Democrats seem to be. It may not be that the things I'm suggesting as fairly obvious will manage to get any traction at all in the public debate, and your point of view will be the one that sweeps the field. On the other hand, we're at the point where the Democrats have a fairly obvious choice for candidate, and the Republicans are still running "generic." I think a lot of the final results will depend on which actual person fills the role of "generic" when the actual campaign begins. There are a lot of independents — and Democrats, for that matter — angry with the president that will have to rethink their positions when an actual candidate appears in opposition. Am I really angry enough not to vote? Or, am I really angry enough to vote for somebody like Huntsman? Or whichever candidate the Republicans choose. And we have to wonder what effect the Tea Party folks are going to have. Are they Republicans? Are they a third Party? If they're Republican, how far right are they going to force the choice of candidate, and what effect will that have on the independents who may have some different ideas about debt, abortion, foreign policy and other things that the very extreme Right will want a big chunk of deciding for the platform? |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “At least 1,000 people are demonstrating in London's financial district as part of a worldwide protest against alleged corporate greed.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15322134 Coming across the pond for an example: The majority of the funding for the $1.9 billion, 845-megawatt Shepherds Flat wind project in Oregon is coming courtesy of federal taxpayers. And that largesse will provide a windfall for General Electric and its partners on the deal who include Google, Sumitomo, and Caithness Energy. Not only is the Energy Department giving GE and its partners a $1.06 billion loan guarantee, but as soon as GE’s 338 turbines start turning at Shepherds Flat, the Treasury Department will send the project developers a cash grant of $490 million. The deal was so lucrative for the project developers that last October, some of Obama’s top advisers, including energy-policy czar Carol Browner and economic adviser Larry Summers, wrote a memo saying that the project’s backers had “little skin in the game” while the government would be providing “a significant subsidy (65+ percent).” The memo goes on to say that, while the project backers would only provide equity equal to about 11 percent of the total cost of the wind project, they would receive an “estimated return on equity of 30 percent.” The memo continues, explaining that the carbon dioxide reductions associated with the project “would have to be valued at nearly $130 per ton for CO2 for the climate benefits to equal the subsidies.” The memo continues, saying that that per-ton cost is “more than 6 times the primary estimate used by the government in evaluating rules.” The Obama administration’s loan guarantee for the now-bankrupt Solyndra has garnered lots of attention, but the Shepherds Flat deal is an even better example of corporate welfare. Several questions are immediately obvious: First: Why, as Browner and Summers asked, is the federal government providing loan guarantees and subsidies for an energy project that could easily be financed by GE, which has a market capitalization of about $170 billion? Second: Why is the Obama administration providing subsidies to GE, which paid little or no federal income taxes last year even though it generated some $5.1 billion in profits from its U.S. operations? Third: How is it that GE’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, can be the head of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness while his company is paying little or no federal income taxes? That question is particularly germane as the president never seems to tire of bashing the oil and gas industry for what he claims are the industry’s excessive tax breaks. Over the past year, according to Yahoo! Finance, the average electric utility’s return on equity has been 7.1 percent. Thus, taxpayer money is helping GE and its partners earn more than four times the average return on equity in the electricity business. A few months ago, I ran into Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy. I asked him why Duke — which has about 14,000 megawatts of coal-fired generation capacity — was investing in wind9energy projects. The answer, said Rogers forthrightly, was simple: The subsidies available for wind projects allow Duke to earn returns on equity of 17 to 22 percent.” http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/279802/america-s-worst-wind-energy-project-robert-bryce?pg=2 . |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: quote: Actually I've been touring Europe, five days in southern Spain, then a leisurely drive back through Madrid to the South of France, then up the west coast of France and across to Ypres in Belgium to visit the WW1 memorials. Ain't capitalism grand? The occupy Wall Street folk? I'm in favour of them. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Well, John, The NR has a point. I, too, think that corporate welfare is wretched. Since all you're doing is quoting, how you're thinking remains mysterious. I don't like corporate welfare in Republican administrations and I'm against it in Democratic administrations as well. Do you have any position on the matter? If, however, you're going to use corporate welfare as a policy tool, something that I think this administration has done, then I notice that they seem to have deployed this particular policy tool in line with their policy objectives, and have gotten the investment stream to follow up the incentives by investing in Green energy possibilities as opposed to the lower paying regular energy investment opportunities — at least in the case that the NR is complaining about. This may be part of why the NR is crying Foul. To me this seems the sort of tactic a Liberal Republican would use; that is, to incentivize the investment process to pull capital in the direction you want it to go — using market forces to national advantage — rather than simply give cash grants alone.That would tend to support my theory of Obama as a man out of his time, more of a Liberal Republican than a Liberal Democrat, but I have a weakness for my own theory building, and I might be off base. I think the money ought to go to the poor, personally, but then I'm not a practical politician. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Sounds like a wonderful way to spend a few days, Uncas. There is nothing wrong with anyone being in favor of a peaceful protest movement. Protest movements have helped shape our country, from the original tea party, to suffragettes, the civil rights movements and so on. When the government shows that it is not going to pay attention to it's citizens, protest marches can make the difference. In order for these movements to be right and effective, I think three points must be followed. First, it must be peaceful and not infringe on the rights of others. Second, it must have a goal. It needs to be able to state what it is protesting and how the protestors want to change things. Third, it must be aimed at the right target. If you are protesting the high cost of hamburgers, you don't protest Lord & Taylor's. I don't see where the occupiers meet any of these three points. There have been almost 1000 arrested on various charges, they have taken over private property, and shown utter disregard for rights of others. What are they protesting? Depends who you ask. Take your pick....government bailouts, unemployment, Wall Street bonuses, elimination of all personal debt, free college education, guaranteed jobs....the list goes on and on. Do they offer any solutions for the things they are protesting against? No, they just carry "Down with Capitalism" signs and shake their fists. Third, what are they doing at Wall Street? What has the stock market done? They didn't bail out anyone. Washington did. They gave out big bonuses? So...? Obama has blasted Wall Street while taking their money. He doesn't speak in specifics. He speaks to inflame the masses. When asked by a reporter why some of the Wall Street bigwigs weren't in jail, Obama was forced to explain that the reason was that they hadn't done anything to break the law. Well, then!! If they haven't broken the law, whose fault is it? Obama went on to say that, well, they hadn't broken the law but the things they did just weren't right. Excuse me? That was Obama that said that???? Well, perhaps we need Morality Police with arrest powers. Corporations have done exactly whatthe government has allowed them to do, by the law. Ron mentioned in an earlier thread that it was an American's right and duty to take advantage of all deductions afforded and use them to his best advantage. Well, that's what businesses do. If the president doesn't think that's right, then change the laws, remove the loopholes. DOn't blame the corporations for doing what they are supposed to be doing. The problem is with the administration, not the corporations. The protestors should have one target.....Washington D.C. They should be protesting the White House and Congress. Through careful manipulation by Obama, with help from the left-wing media, he has shifted the blame from where it belongs to corporate America.....and the occupiers are too dumb to see how they are being manipulated. They are too busy protesting.... |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
Yes Mike, corporations are allowed to take advantage of the rules, which would work perfectly well if you had a political system that allowed your government to set reasonably rules. Unfortunately your political system has been perverted to a point where the corporations effectively write the rules. That’s what the protestors are protesting Mike, sure it comes out in different slogans, chants and signage but the base message is the same. Corporations are buying your politicians with impunity and re-writing the rules if you can’t see that you need to look at some of the inane things your government has done, things that no sane person would see as anything other than politicians bending to the coercion and pressure of corporations. People could donate to the campaign funds of politicians they supported, corporations, not being people, couldn’t, which restricted their ability to bribe politicians somewhat – a little bit of lobbying and, hey presto, corporations are people. A lack of regulation in the financial sector resulted in a catastrophic world depression – anyone with half a brain could see that regulation was needed to stop the same thing happen again – banking corporations however don’t really want regulation cramping their style so guess what - deregulation is the new mantra from Washington. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Corporations buying politicians....inane things the government is doing... Sounds to me like you are agreeing that the protestors should be in Washington d.c. |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
No, they’re in the right place Mike. . |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Ok...whatever. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. London http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15324901 . |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Nazis and Communists throw their support behind OWS: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/10/figures-nazi-party-throws-support-behind-occupy-wall-street-movement/ |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
"The true purpose of the Occupy movement appears to be further economic and governmental destabilization, at a time when the world is already facing major financial and political challenges. By embracing the Occupy movement, President Barack Obama, the Democrat Party, and their union allies may be supporting an effort to harm both the domestic and global economies; to create social unrest throughout the democratic world; and to embrace other radical causes, including the anti-Israel movement. Ironically, the emails suggest that the President and the Democrat Party may soon find their friends in the Occupy movement to be a political burden. The email below calls for the Occupy movement to begin “executing higher-risk actions, civil disobedience and arrests,” and suggests: “We must draw a line, disavow the Democrats explicitly, make our messaging a little uncomfortable.” http://biggover nment.com/abreitbart/2011/10/14/crowdsource-this-social-list-emails-expose-occupywallstreet-conspiracy-to-destablize-global-markets-governments/ |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Here is the email archive: http://biggovernment.com/thomasryan/2011/10/14/the-email-archive-of-the-occupywallstreet-movement-anarchists-socialists-jihadists-unions-democrats/ |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “The Corporate Exec: Hollywood Demon Nazis are getting old, moviemakers don't want to offend foreign audiences, so corporate types top the list of evil stereotypes. It is not surprising that pop-culture protesters are now intent on occupying Wall Street. For the past decade, Hollywood has been casting financiers as the demonic villains of society. In the multiplexes, businessmen have replaced even terrorists as villains. In the Warner Bros. political thriller "Syriana," for example, the villain is not al Qaeda, an enemy state, the mafia, or even a psychotic serial killer. Rather, it's the big oil companies who manipulate terrorism, wars and social unrest to drive up oil prices. “ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204524604576610762349124314.html Think about that . . . Name off the recent movies where the bad guys looking to destroy/control the world are corporations. Businessmen are the now Elders of Zion . . . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Gosh, it sounds like only really unpleasant people support OWS. Perhaps that justifies doing really extreme things to them? It sounds like they are communists and terrorists and nazis who are getting together do have wild sex and do drugs right in public places. The next thing you know, they might articulate a platform that sounds like it supports civil Liberties and human rights and suggests that people might benefit from having federally sponsored health care and a non-toxic environment. Some people might actually want to own their own homes without being cheated out of them by corrupt banking practices, and others might actually want to get fair pay for a full day's work. I hear tell that there may even be a few misguided souls who are seriously steamed about what they see as inequities in the system we have that seem to get in the way of some of these things being addressed, and are unhappy at the government deadlock that's funded by some of these larger corporations that keep these issues from being addressed. I would, in fact, be one of those people. Am I supposed to be bothered by reports that communists and Nazis support the demonstrators? I'm not. The quoted report of Nazi support reads like a clinical case study of paranoid ravings, and if there are nazis who think that way, they're simply too disorganized to function as a meaningful political force. There are other far Right loonies that I find more troubling, and they aren't supporting the wall street demonstrators at all. Pick your own organized Far right group that can write a fairly reasonable English sentence. Use them for an example. As for the communists, I have yet to meet a set of far right wing folks who understood what the communists were and who they were. They get the evil well enough, and sometimes even better than their left wing counterparts; but they miss the idealism and the hope. It's fairly common for our current crop of Right wing lunatics, such as Rush Limbaugh, to be unable to tell the difference between Nazis and Communists, and to call our current president both at the same time. To most of these folks, they are both synonyms with "bad," and one might as well use the word "ugly" to substitute. As long as these demagogues can fool you into not thinking critically about the stuff they say, their smears have served their purpose. In this case, that would be to keep the public from looking at how gridlocked we are as a country, and how gridlocked we are likely to remain as long as we continue to buy into this spurious left/right struggle instead of getting the corporations out of politics and letting us work out our differences without having chemical money and banking money and oil money yanking our economic and social and foreign policy around like a yo-yo. No, I don't want to live in a communist state, or a fascist state — which seems much more likely to me. I want enough of my freedoms left so that the governments I help elect are responsive to the will of the people who elect them and not the companies that fund their campaigns. So I'm more or less on the side of those folks who think that those companies should stop trying to buy the people who I elect. Companies aren't people; people are people. Money isn't speech, words are speech. Free speech does not seem to me to suggest that those with the most money should be able to buy a better hearing unless that have something to say. And the last I heard, at least for the bottom 99%, money isn't free. Maybe for the top 1%, though, it's a tax write-off. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
All corporations are not evil. If you believe I've said that, you've misread me. What the wall street folks are saying depends on how sophisticated they are about the situation. Some corporations really are without conscience, or at least they act that way. Some are mixed. What we need is a model of corporations that demands a certain amount of service to the community for that corporation to continue its charter. Treatment of indigineous populations such as the treatment some oil companies have modeled in south American should be cause for the removal of the papers of incorporation and all tax advantages plus substantial and painful fines and criminal penalties for the executives involved, for example. Fair trade practices, conversely, should be rewarded appropriately. When one talks about "all" corporations or "all" individuals then one is talking automatic nonsense — generalizations that large have a very difficult time supporting their own weight. They tend to crumble against the force of gravity and shoddy construction. If you'd like to include this generalization in that number, please feel free. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Bob, it is the stated goal of the organizers behind this 'movement', OWS, to collapse our system entirely as can be seen in their 'planning' emails. And now the Nazi and Communists groups have come out publicly giving their support. I know that you don't want the collapse of our system. How then can you support them knowing their goals? They are merely using the frustrated protestors, some of whom have legitimate gripes, for their own ends of creating chaos, collapsing our system and instituting the system they desire. Remember Van Jones, the self-avowed Communist, former Obama Green Jobs functionary, who called for a bottom-up/top-down strategy to affect a revolution? That is what is being attempted here. It's a Bill Ayres/Weather Underground 1960's redux, which they are hoping will meet with success this time around. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “Whenever the economy goes south, experts talk of the housing “bubble,” the tech “bubble,” the credit “bubble.” But the real bubble is the 1950 “American moment,” and our failure to understand that moments are not permanent. The United States emerged from the Second World War as the only industrial power with its factories intact and its cities not reduced to rubble, and assumed that that unprecedented preeminence would last forever: We would always be so far ahead and so flush with cash that we could do anything and spend anything and we would still be Number One. . . Beneath the allegedly young idealism are very cobwebbed assumptions about societal permanence. The agitators for “American Autumn” think that such demands are reasonable for no other reason than that they happen to have been born in America, and expectations that no other society in human history has ever expected are just part of their birthright. But a society can live on the accumulated capital of a glorious inheritance only for so long. And in that sense this bloodless, insipid revolution is just a somewhat smellier front for the sclerotic status quo.” http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/280173/crisis-decadence-mark-steyn?pg=2 . |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
It's not always corporations that buy off politicians. Sometimes it's the other way around. Solyndra comes to mind. Going to be very interesting when that investigation picks up speed. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Nothing new under the sun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3YtVxuFXwc&feature=player_embedded |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: Good point Denise. In the great depression the government spent money to create jobs and kick-start consumer spending, the cartoon you linked to shows that some people at the time thought that was a bad idea, that it would lead to the total collapse of the American economy. Fortunately they were wrong. . |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Yep, fortunately. Some economists believe, though, that the government intervention extended the Great Depression by about 10 years. That's a lot of unnecessary suffering if true. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Yes, I've heard that about the economists. Who would they be and where did they make their statements? I'd like a chance to have a look. Maybe I could learn something. Maybe I might find an interesting reply. I have no idea at this point. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Google it, Bob. That's what I did. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Why? You're the one who's suggesting it's true. If you can't support your allegation, as far as I'm concerned, you aren't holding up your end of the conversation. Why should I do your work for you? I'd say the same thing to anybody else and I'd expect them to say the same thing to me. Beyond that, you're well aware that conventional wisdom is that it was Keynesian economic got us out of the depression, and that you're making a statement that's contrary to generally accepted understanding. If you expect to be taken seriously, then you need to explain that you're passing on more than a rumor. "Some people say," is unattributed and waves responsibility on the part of the speaker — you in this case. Why should I believe something the speaker herself is unwilling to take responsibility for stating? And when I ask for data, she blows me off. Give me a break! |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Don't believe me, verify it yourself. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Bob, you are going under the premise that you would believe it, anyway. Your track record shows that that is not likely. Verifying is the right thing. if you think she is wrong, show us where, You would be checking it out anyway if the links were provided if to do nothing more to prove her wrong. So go for it.... |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
I'm not blowing you off Bob. I mentioned that many economists believe that the government intervention during the Great Depression prolonged it by about 10 years. It was something that I read awhile ago. You obviously had heard the same as you stated that you did. Why must I take the time to try to find something that I had read several months to a year ago, especially when you would not be satisfied with whatever source contained that analysis? You would just dismiss my source, present your own source that has an analysis stating the complete opposite, and as Michael said, think you have proven me wrong. What's the point? Can't I even state that I read something once that suggested something without it having to turn into a full blown debate with points and counter points? I don't have time for that. I'm not online very much due to my having a full time job, a part time job and a sick husband. I enjoy being a part of the conversation when I do get a chance to pop in and share a few things. If you don't think I'm 'holding up' my end of the conversation because I am not jumping through your hoops that's truly your problem. |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: This appeal to authority is a pretty weak argument given that the authority in question - economists - spectacularly failed to predict every recession and depression that's ever occurred - including the current one. Why the heck would you believe those idiots. I've heard the claims that the new deal prolonged the depression Bob, they don't make much sense though when you dig into them. The claims generally quote unemployment figures that ignore all the jobs created by the government at the time while relying on hypothetical growth rates in GDP that are way higher than highest growth rates ever achieved in the history of American economics. There's a far easier way to debunk the notion though, simply compare America's recovery to another country that didn't introduce any type of New Deal style policy - Australia for instance - did Australia's economy recover 7 years earlier than that of the US. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Thank you, Uncas. You are gracious in offering your insights here. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7694 |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Why not go to the actual source Mike? http://occupywallst.org/forum/ http://occupywallst.org/about/ http://nycga.cc/ http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/ |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
"I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money." ~Thomas Sowell |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
You sound as though you believe that wanting shelter and food is greedy, Denise. Is that what you mean to be saying? I always thought that greedy had to do with a situation where a person already had enough and was now looking to increase their share at the expense of the fair share of others. The poor, in this case, frequently, don't have shelter or food or basic medical care, a safe environment or other basics. It sounds that you are suiggesting that it is greedy for them to want these things in a wealthy country. If these are your thoughts, I must respectfully disagree. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I don't see the protestors without food or a place to live. I see them out there with computers, cellphones, jewelry and, as you pointed out, decently dressed....wanting more and demanding that others pay for it. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/07/what-is-poverty . |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
All of this is simply the politics of envy, "I want what you have and if I can't have it I don't want you to have it either". Did Steve Jobs or Bill Gates take the 'fair share' of others or did they create their own wealth, opportunity for others in the way of employment, and improve all of our lives at the same time? I don't want the government determining if or when someone has made enough and that a 'fair share' of what they make belongs to everybody else. Nobody else's wealth is mine for the taking. I didn't earn their wealth, they did. What I earn is mine, period. http://www.daveramsey.com/article/dear-occupy-wall-street/lifeandmoney_economy/ |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: Unless you're a banker who just got a bonus from a government bailout, which I think is closer to the point the protesters are making. . |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Politics of envy? Really? That's what you want to say to the 50 million people who were playing by the rules working hard, and wanted to KEEP WHAT THEY EARNED when they woke up one morning to find that Wall Street had picked their pocket of all the equity they had built up in their house and actually left them swimming in a mortgage that was now more than the house was worth? The politics of envy? If you don't have a job and you're not rich it's your own fault (excepting for when you feel like blaming Obama). If you lost your job to some 6 year old in India, you should have learned how to make it in America for 50 cents a day.... right? Am I right? Otherwise, you're just a big steaming pile of envy. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
The bankers paid back the bailout loans with interest. I think I read somewhere (sorry don't have the link handy) that the government made 70 billion on the deal. So what's the problem? |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
A few bad apple bankers didn't cause all those problems, LR. That planned economic meltdown had plenty of help from the politicians and their policies and the movers and shakers behind the politicians. I lost a lot in the meltdown too. But I'm not 'Occupying Wall Street' over it. That's not where the primary problem is located. And that isn't the way to solve the problem. We have to start electing people who have our best interests as their focus and not the interests of their political contributors. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: That was your posting, Denise. Now it appears that you didn't mean that, but something different; more nuanced. Something about the demonstrators instead of the issues the demonstrators are upset about, it seems. When you let a quote say everything for you, you run the risk of having people misunderstand what you're talking about. It would still be helpful if you were specific about what you were talking about, simply to put the quote in context. |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
You're absolutely right Denise, the politicians who caved to Wall Street and got rid of Glass Steagal are absolutely responsible for this too. You're sounding more like a 99%er all the time |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: Gosh, you don't see me without food or a place to live, either, Mike. You make it sound as though if I protest that others don't have it, that means my voice doesn't mean anything. That makes no sense at all. Since you don't have a bajillion bucks, that doesn't mean that you don't have a right to stand up for the rights of bajillionaires, does it? I would hope not. And that doesn't mean that your super rich bajillionaires don't want more and don't want others to pay for it, either. In fact, that's how a lot of business is done. The problem comes, it seems to me, when the super rich compete for money that should be going to people who can't feed or clothe or house themselves, and when that money goes to simply pilling up personal wealth rather than helping aid survival. And yes, John, that survival can on occasion include heat and air conditioning. I've lived in situations where the lack of one or the other can be debilitating or fatal, and I suspect that you have as well. In the winter in Montreal the temperature can and does go down to thirty below and colder on occasion, and here in LA the temperature can and does go above a hundred on occasion. Even in Boston there are weather related deaths, as there are pretty much across the country. I'd be hard put to believe San Diego, mind you. Depending on the state of the economy, the homeless population varies widely, and a large portion of the homeless in a bad economy can be children. Here in LA, we have a very limited number of shelter beds and a large number of homeless folks. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Yeah, those darn Wall Street pickpockets. They did it all, without the government doing anything. The housing values went down and caused people to owe more than their house is now worth, all Wall Street fault. Nothing to do with Fannie, Freddie, Barney or Acorn. Bob thinks they are out there protesting for the homeless and destitute. We must be looking at different demonstrations. The ones I see, they are protesting for themselves. They want their personal debts wiped off. They was assured jobs at good pay. They want a free college education. I haven't heard anyone say anything about the homeless. Of course it would help if they actually knew what they were protesting. Asking them doesn't shed any light on it. They don't seem to have a clue. They have been asked repeatedly by reporters and come up empty. One student was asked that question on the evening news tonight and he said, "We will stay here until we get what we want!" The reporter said, "What do you want?" and the kid went speechless...didn't know what to say. That's been typical since it all started. I could suggest some new signs like "THE UPPER 1% PAYS 40% OF ALL INCOME TAXES AND WE WANT THEM TO PAY MORE!! or WE WANT THE 50% THAT DON'T PAY TAXES TO PAY LESS!! Maybe that would work.... |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/top-1-paid-more-in-fede ral-income-taxes-than-bottom-95-in-07/ The top one percent made more than twenty percent of the income (2007 figures) and that figure had been showing steady growth. The graphs are available at the site above. So if the top one percent paid more in taxes than 95% of the population, they'd also made at least 20% of the total gross income in the whole country; and that share had been increasing at the expense of those at the lower levels. Among other question that come up must be, why does the country need to borrow money to give to the top 1%, then; is there some data that says that they need it and people who have difficulty finding food and shelter don't? I'd really have to have that demonstrated by showing how all these years of tax cuts have made the economy boom. I'd in particular like to know how many of the 1% are counted among the 50% that don't pay taxes, or that end up getting paid by the government overall for one thing or another so that they file taxes and perhaps end up with years of surplus on their taxes. Of course, I'm speaking here of income taxes, since I don't believe that anybody would be silly enough to believe that anybody in the US gets away without paying any taxes. There are taxes on clothing, food, adult beverages, cars, gasoline, tobacco products, sales in general and all sorts of things that take a large part out of everybody's supply of money; and these taxes are for the most part regressive taxes and fall most heavily on the poor. Even kids pay them when they buy soft drinks. So, out of curiosity, how many of that 1% don't pay income tax on a regular basis? http://www.altweeklies.com/aan/9-things-the-rich-dont-want-you-to-know-about-taxes/Story?oid=3971382 |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: I'd agree with that. Mike. The previous US governments are guilty of letting them do it and the current government is guilty of almost guaranteeing that they'll do it again but ultimately the financial institutions that slither around Wall Street are to blame. . |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
If they slither, they don't have arms or hands so how can they be pickpockets?? Just askin'.. When they follow the law and it's wrong, then the law is wrong. |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
fangs |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
You're welcome. |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: And when they bribe politicians to change the law in their favour? |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I agree. Not much we can do about the bribers - I'm fairly certain park occupiers won't do it - but we can vote the takers out of office. That's why I say the protestors are at the wrong location. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Why not join them and let your feelings be known, Mike? You may have some major disagreements with them, but it sounds as though you have some points in common as well. Why let this movement be a completely left wing movement? |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I have many points in common with them. I don't like the greed or corruption any more than they do. Unfortunately I have two major differences with them. First, they have no purpose, no plan. They are just revolting. Second they are in the wrong place. They should be in front of the national and state capitols. Protesting against businesses is simple, especially if you have the 99% of the public you claim to have. You boycott them. You hit them in their wallets. The protestors have no game plan. They are just letting off steam. Ok, letting off steam can be a good thing but that's not enough if you are trying to accomplish something. The tea partiers accomplished something. They told the congressmen do right by us or we vote you our of office...and they had enough solidarity and influence to do exactly that. The protestors have nothing like that and that makes them ineffective. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Join them and add your insight and vision. You'd have a chance of effecting some of your ideas for direction. |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
If you think they hsve no plan Mike, you need to turn off the Fox and read the websites I linked you to earlier. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. I this morning had a brief conversation with a young woman who is pursuing her masters online and is having to take out government loans because tuition and books for her online courses run $12,000 a year, (a course goes for $2,000 a book she cited $200). What bank do you blame for that? I knew within weeks of starting my university education on the GI Bill almost 40 years ago that a BA in English was not going to get me a job worth the time, money and effort. So if someone now takes out loans to major in English or Diversity Studies and ends up with a degree, huge debts, and no job, what bank do you blame for that? There was a lot of greed among the masses that drove the housing market for years after there were open warnings in the media that the bubble was bound to burst. Barney Frank is on tape blowing off concerns about Fannie and Freddie which were feeding the insanity. . |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
LR, you don't want me to dissect your first link. Trust me on this one. Your second link states..OccupyWallSt.org is the unofficial de facto online resource for the ongoing protests happening on Wall Street. We are an affinity group committed to doing technical support work for resistance movements. We are not affiliated with Adbusters, anonymous or any other organization. Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District, and has spread to over 100 cities in the United States and actions in over 1,500 cities globally. #OWS is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future. Occupy Wall Street is a horizontally organized resistance movement employing the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to restore democracy in America. We use a tool known as a "people's assembly" to facilitate collective decision making in an open, participatory and non-binding manner. We call ours the NYC General Assembly and we welcome people from all colors, genders and beliefs to attend our daily assemblies. To learn more about how you can start a people's assembly to organize your local community to fight back against social injustice, please read this quick guide on group dynamics in people's assemblies. Great. Those are a lot of words that say nothing about the OWS purpose, except to say that it is " fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. " No specifics givenat all. Third link makes no sense at all. Fourth link consists of letter of hard luck stories, including one from a baby five weeks old (must be a child progedy!!!) I am 5 weeks old. My daddy works three jobs so that my mommy can stay home and take care of me. We live in a one-bedroom apartment because the rent for a larger home is too high - there are families in our apartment building with 3 or more children living in the same size space. We are lucky – my daddy’s student loan (Bachelor of Comp. Sci.) is almost paid off and we have no other debt. But my parents stress out about the possibility of the car breaking down or me getting sick because we don’t have much extra money. We live in Hawaii, where there is the greatest concentration of both billionaires and homeless in the world and it’s obvious that it is time for a reality check in paradise. We are the 99%. occupywallst.org Non list a goal or plan of action to change their status. Your links are basically worthless and answer nothing. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
John, at what point did you get the idea that banks are to blame for everything? Or that everybody on the left believes that and should try to defend that proposition. There is also a difference between a liberal education and a training school which has been lost over the years. The public at large has come to think that a liberal education ought to supply job skills training. That is a confusion of purposes. A degree in engineering used to be available at an engineering school. Mining engineers yused to be trained in mining schools and doctors, without benefit of prior pre-medical training, used to be trained in Medical schools. Law schools used to be apprenticeships and then an exam. These were professions with skills that didn't really need a college education in the Arts or in the Sciences. I think they probably still don't, and that a liberal arts education is not what people in these professions, for the most part, want. They want training so they can make money and have a certain amount of status. I don't know a lot of people in these professions who read more than professional or pulp literature for the rest of their lives, and I don't know many who make a point of reading outside their own political viewpoint, religious viewpoint or cultural viewpoint unless forced to do so. There are some extraordinary exceptions, and I love finding them, too many for me to say that I've run across a rule, enough to say that most people don't want a liberal education, whose function is to teach the student to think. Most people, I'd have to say, tend to want an education that pays for itself in cash, and resent having to pay for one that gives such ephemeral results. I think pure training programs would be cheaper. And a liberal arts education is probably wasted on most of the people who'd rather simply be a doctor, or a lawyer or an engineer or a clergyman. Why are college educations so expensive? Because colleges are wasting their time training people instead of educating them, which means there are too many of them with too many duplicated structures which duplicate costs unnecessarily, especially administrative costs. They are in competition for the same money from donors, which makes endowment money difficult to come by. The costs of education aren't usually covered by tuition and fees; each student is frequently a cost liability for the college and requires an expenditure from the endowment. Students, even paying full freight, don't usually pay for the full cost of their educations. And during tough economic times, the size of the endowments tends to go down because the market will go down, because all investments in the endowment don't make money, and because of inflation. Inflation is tough to figure because it is not only objective, but subjective as well. I have two subjective measures I go by because they're meaningful to me, not because they're exact measures. I was looking at candy bars the other day. I saw an old favorite of mine, a three musketeers bar, selling for a dollar. When I was a kid, it was a nickle. When I was an undergraduate, it was a dime. I quit smoking cigarettes when I was about 25. I'd been smoking three packs a day for years, and the price had just hit $.40 a pack. It depends where you buy them these days, but ten to twelve times that amount isn't all that out of line. And the cost of tuition that John's friend reports is in the same range. If you want to ask what effect the banks have on that, I'd be interested in knowing what percentage of that money these days is directly on loan from the government and what percentage is through a bank and what profit the bank makes on top of the rate the government charges, and what the penalties and fees the bank charges over and above what the government has asked for? I don't know the answers to these things, but I have doubts that the banks would handle business that wasn't profitable for them. Perhaps others know of efforts on the part of the banking industry to rid themselves of this, but I don't. I suspect that a less expensive way might be found to manage these loans so that they'd be cheaper for the students and involve less processing and paperwork all around, siumply by cutting the banks and their profit margin out of the picture. Doesn't that qualify as corporate welfare? |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
I had hoped you would be a bit more adventurous Mike...and I don't want you to dissect at all, participate, watch this and be there; http://www.nycga.net/about/ read this and understand (unless you choose not to) http://www.nycga.net/resources/declaration/ You're looking for the end, but, there is no end. It's the beginning of the means. There is no varnish, no spin, no pre-packaged memes. And, I realize democracy is a scary thing. The problem is, for most of our lives we were programmed to believe democracy and capitalism are synonymous. YOU can have a part in it too.... share your voice with them.... everyone has a voice in it. The only people that should frighten are the ones who think they should have more voice than everybody else. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
More adventurous, reb? I spent over an hour on your first link and found more to support my theory than anyone else's.. As far as these go, yes, I read and understand. I understand that they have a shopping list of complaints, most of which have been in existence for decades. To pick out a couple... They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media. They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt. They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas. They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right. I wasn't aware that a college education is a human right.. Anyone can come up with these generic statements but what is missing is any solutions to what they claim is the problem. You claim I'm looking for the end but there is no end? Guilty as charged. When I start something there is a goal in mind and at least some kind of blueprint to achieve that end. This is like the Sacramento fellow who said, "We are all meeting here and I will appoint a committee to decide why we are meeting here." Excuse me?? Their demands are a list of bromides, nothing more, that make little or no sense. You make it sound like it's unrealistic to believe they should know what they are talking about and what changes they want made, almost as if just bonding together in mobs in parks, carrying signs and chanting will somehow create some kind of osmosis that will lead the way to peace, light and happiness for all. Way back when in my business life, I worked for a man who said, "Feel free to bring up any problems you see but make sure you have a solution or better way when you do." Afraid I still live by that. Groups that just band together to complain about everything from animal testing to eliminating all debt and have nothing positive to offer don't interest me, LR. |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
I've removed several posts from this thread that were directed at posters when everyone here knows they should be directed at posts. Please try to stay on track, guys. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
[ Edited - Bob, you had some good points in this post, but I just don't have time to edit out the parts where you continue to talk about other people who are posting in this thread. You'll have to do your own editing, I'm afraid. And I sincerely hope you do. - Ron ] [This message has been edited by Ron (10-22-2011 03:29 PM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Thanks, Ron. I appreciate the feedback. I do have a copy of this, and I think I'll take a day or two and revise. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. There are now more foreign students taking advanced degrees in engineering and the sciences at our top universities than Americans. India now has a middle class of three hundred million and growing while 80% of US manufacturers surveyed say one of their biggest problems is finding skilled labor for their workforce . Mark Steyn made a good point: the American bubble of 1950, (the advantages of being the only major country not devastated by war), has deflated. Is that Wall Street’s fault? . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Perhaps you might clarify why you would call the sustained growth during the forties and fifties and well into the sixties "a bubble?" It seems that it's convenient to call it that in a NR essay, but I don't recall any contemporary literature that spoke of it that way, and the growth that took place seemed solid enough. It was an era of both Democratic and Republican administrations. It seems to me that the notion of bubbles has become more frequent since the attacks on the safety net have intensified. I identify the beginning of that as the time when country's currency was first allowed to float during the Nixon administration. I'm not terribly sophisticated economically, and I confess this may be an arbitrary marker. I'd be interested in hearing the thoughts of others on the matter. Since that time, there have been a series of attacks on the regulations that tried to prevent the conditions that allowed the great depression to happen, including the deregulation of banking and insurance industries. As these episodic deregulations have be legislated, the results seem to have been occasional boom and bust cycles in the industries that the regulations had been meant to control. Utilities, for example, leading to the Enron disaster; and banking and insurance leading to the housing and mortgage boom and bust. I don't recall anything of that sort during the fifties. Perhaps John might refresh our memories by offering an example to bolster his suggestion that the particular era he suggests was a Bubble actually was a bubble and not an era of solid growth. This has the feel of the NR attempting another revision of the historical record. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Mark Steyn made a good point: the American bubble of 1950, (the advantages of being the only major country not devastated by war), has deflated. I think that is pretty self-explanatory. We were indeed basically one of the only major countries not devastated by WWII. While we were prospering, the rest of the world was recuperating and rebuilding. Later, when the countries had recovered, the "bubble" was gone. It is also a sobering fact about the foreign students outnumbering Americans in advance degrees in engineering and the sciences. America does not rank high in the world with regards to education. Other countries recognize what we have and take advantage of them to be successful...(while our students protest that they want everything for free.) |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Other countries send their kids to college to get those degrees Mike. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Be more specific, please. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “Since 1970, public-school employment has increased ten times faster than public-school enrollment. In 2008, the United States spent more per student on K–12 education than any other developed nation except Switzerland — and at least the Swiss have something to show for it. In 2008, York City School District spent $12,691 per pupil — or about a third more than the Swiss. Slovakia’s total per-student cost is less than York City’s current per-student deficit — and the Slovak kids beat the United States at mathematics, which may explain why their budget arithmetic still has a passing acquaintanceship with reality. . . For example, under the Obama “stimulus,” U.S. taxpayers gave a $529 million loan guarantee to the company Fisker to build their Karma electric car. At a factory in Finland. If you’re wondering how giving half a billion dollars to a Finnish factory stimulates the U.S. economy, well, what’s a lousy half-bil in a multi-trillion-dollar sinkhole? Besides, in the 2009 global rankings, Finnish schoolkids placed sixth in math, third in reading, and second in science, while suffering under the burden of a per-student budget half that of York City. By comparison, America placed 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and 31st in math. So the good news is that, by using U.S.-government money to fund a factory in Finland, Fisker may be able to hire workers smart enough to figure out how to build an unwanted electric car that doesn’t lose its entire U.S.-taxpayer investment.” http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/280986/biden-s-fourth-grade-economics-mark- steyn?pg=2 What percentage of US students in college at entry are found to lack the basic skills necessary for success at university? What percentage show little or no improvement in cognitive skills after two years of classes? The young woman pursuing her masters online told me she heard from more than one source that college has become the new high school, an extension of adolescence. Is that Wall Street’s fault? . |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Specifically, most EU, Arabic, and in South America, Brazil and Argentina provide post-secondary education tuition free. |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: So are you saying that the state funded education system in Finland, where no tuition fees are charged, is better than the education system in the US.? . |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
We apparently need Finnishing school. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. US public high schools charge tuition? “Delineated High School While there is little grading and in essence no tracking in Finland, ninth grade does become a divider for Finnish students. Students are separated for the last three years of high school based on grades. Under the current structure, 53% will go to academic high school and the rest enter vocational school. Using that format, Finland has an overall high-school dropout rate of about 4%. Even at the vocational schools the rate of 10% pummels America’s 25% high school drop out rate. There is no silly “college for all” mantra and there certainly isn’t a push to have all students sit through a trigonometry class if that is not relevant to the student. More importantly, there is also no negative connotation to the concept of vocational school. We noted previously the writings of Charles Murray in an earlier post, Too Many Americans Are Going to College, that far too many people see such training as second class while college is thought of as first class. Julie Walker, executive director of the American Association of School Librarians, notes the obvious student responsibility results at this juncture. While “the U.S. holds teachers accountable for teaching” in Finland “they hold the students accountable for learning.” Perhaps more importantly, there is a realization of the realistic academic potential of the entire student population. As Murray notes in another article, “Half of all children are below average, and teachers can do only so much for them.” http://www.openeducation.net/2008/03/10/several-lessons-to-be-learned-fro m-the-finnish-school-system/ . [This message has been edited by Huan Yi (10-23-2011 05:37 PM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Our public schools are not as good as those in many other countries. Our colleges, on the other hand, tend to be much better. Our public schools don't have a national curriculum, and the curriculum that we do have is to some extend determined by the text books we chose. Those text books are determined by the largest market for text-books, which is Texas. The text books in Texas tend to reflect the viewpoint of Texans. If you want to know why our high school educations and grade school educations don't compete with many of the European educations on the same level, you might want to try to fact check some of the, say, science and history viewpoints that are taught from those textbooks, which may have only a marginal relationship with reality. College text books are somewhat a different matter. The reason that a lot of college teaching is remedial is that a lot of the stuff taught in grade school and high school is convenient fiction, and that the more honest material about the same events taught in college is a revelation to a lot of students. A lot of the best US education has to take place in Graduate School. You oughtta talk to some text book editors someday. It's an eye opener. Not all problems have to do with banks and wall street, but this one certainly has a healthy dose of economics salted into it. It also has a solid dose of religion leading educational policy for the public schools, and I believe that has had uncomfortable consequences for the country. Should those folks who want to support parochial schools with idiosyncratic views of reality wish to do so, they should have that freedom, They should not have the freedom to indoctrinate the rest of the children in the country into that set of beliefs, in my firm opinion. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. 2+2=4 pretty much everywhere . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
And after first grade? |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
While the U.S. holds teachers accountable for teaching, in Finland ,they hold the students accountable for learning. Nor THERE'S a novel idea. Perhaps we should try that? |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Perhaps you should present that idea to your Republican brethern in Wisconsin Mike, where theyjust passed a bill to fire teachers based on NCLB test scores. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Yep, never pass up a chance to sneak in a political jab. Do I know who I'm talking to? Oh, yes... You seem to be under the delusion that I am all republican, all the time. Sorry to disappoint you.. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. "While there is little grading and in essence no tracking in Finland, ninth grade does become a divider for Finnish students. Students are separated for the last three years of high school based on grades. Under the current structure, 53% will go to academic high school and the rest enter vocational school." And just how far would that get with Democrats? |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
All teachers are prepared in academic universities. Teachers are highly respected and appreciated in Finland, partly because all teachers need a master’s degree to qualify for a permanent job. And the selection is tough: only 10% of the 5000 applicants each year are accepted to the faculties of education in Finnish universities. Finland improved its public education system not by privatizing its schools or constantly testing its students, but by strengthening the education profession and investing in teacher preparation and support. Their high level knowledge and skills makes that Finnish teachers 1. can have considerable independence in the classroom to choose their preferred appropriate pedagogical methods; 2. are very willing to continuously update their professional skills via post-graduate studies; 3. are more willing to work on themselves, are open to new ideas and developed broader perspectives (I refer slightly to the article: MBAs Make Better CEOs… But Why?); 4. are eager to be involved into the school development processes in their own schools as well as in national and international projects. There are no mandatory tests or exams; except for the nationwide National Matriculation Examination, in mother tongue, foreign language, mathematics and social/natural sciences, at the end of the upper-secondary school (from 17-19-year-old). Teachers make their own assessment tests, not quoting numeric grades, but using descriptive feedback, no longer comparing students with one another. This helped teachers and students focusing on learning in a fear-free environment, in which creativity and risk-taking are encouraged. Teachers have more real freedom in time planning when they do not need have to focus on annual tests or exams. http://bertmaes.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/why-is-education-in-finland-that-good-10-reform-principles-behind-the-success/ |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Mike, I didn't know that you differed from the Republican philosophy in education. I'd be interested in how. I thought that John's description the the Finnish school system sounded very good to me. I liked it. I don't think that everybody has to follow an academic pathway, and I think that grades are frequently not helpful in assessment of actual school work and in assement of understanding of material. Why John believes that this sort of thing is a Democratic approach is something I'm unclear about. I believe that assessment of programs and pedagogy are important. On the other hand, I think it's important who's grading the silly test, and if they know enough about the material to see a right answer when they run across one; that's not always the case, is it? |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “British history has been punctuated by stories of turbulent priests more often than by stories of recalcitrant congregations. As Thomas à Becket discovered to his detriment, it is usually the clergy — and not their flock — who find themselves in danger of being ousted. As of October 16, London’s famous St. Paul’s cathedral sits squarely in this tradition, with its dean, the Right Reverend Graeme Knowles, now publicly regretting the leniency he initially showed the camped-out members of “Occupy London Stock Exchange” — the British franchise of the now-global “Occupy” brigade. If Dean Knowles had expected to be afforded the same respect by OLSX that he has become accustomed to from his parishioners, he was sorely mistaken. Since their free pass was issued, the people-in-tents have made it blindingly obvious that they are not merely differently dressed members of the City of London’s laity, but, literally, occupiers intent on holding the fort at all costs.” http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/281160/occupying-st-paul-s-charles-c-w-cooke How far is St Paul’s from Piccadilly? . |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: A couple of miles. But if you're visiting St Paul's it's worth a look at the London Stock Exchange which is only a short stroll away. . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
In answer to John’s question, my recollection is that you can walk it in half an hour along the Strand. Maybe 45 Minutes. My recollection may be faulty since the last time I was there was a year after 9/11, but my wife and I were there yearly for ten years beforehand. Why? A posting,from the Occupy Wall Street Thread above, by Mike — quote: Here we have the beginnings of an excellent series of postings. I am thrilled to see them, yet a bit surprised. John asks, in post 184 quote: I imagine the question of education came up in a couple of different ways. I can’t be sure. One might be a comment made by LR about the hash that the Republicans appear to be making of the educational system in Wisconsin. Another might be a comment about college education not being a human right in this same thread quite a while before. Since humanity predates colleges, I suspect that it’d be a hard case to make that College education is a human right. I also suspect that it’d be a poor move to make college difficult for deserving students to afford in any country that has hopes for industrial and technological authority in the 21st century. Making college a difficult burden for future students and making them pay a penalty for stepping up and doing themselves and the country an economic and a social favor by getting a degree in science, math, education or any of a half-dozen or more fields would be a fool move on the part of the government and their fellow citizens, who would reap a lifetime worth of benefits in terms of taxes that would more than repay the costs. In our case, today, we have decided to screw the potential future taxpayers, limit the amount of future taxes they will be able to pay, and decided to turn over the difference to banks. Banks, seeing to potential to make some money off this potential bonanza, inserted themselves between the government and the students and cut themselves in for a fat interest fee which makes the deal far from the outright encouragement it should have been. Money that could have gone for more loans for more students has been eaten by the banks. If Congress, in its wisdom, wanted to limit the number of students, that money could have gone to paying down the debt or to paying money to people who don’t have a roof over their heads or food to put in their own mouths or the mouths of their children. It could have gone into the social security fund. Congress is always borrowing against the social security fund and claiming that there isn’t enough money in it; why not sock a little extra away? Gold-plating the toilet paper at The Bank of America seems to be a bit wasteful. The people at Bank of America should be taking some reasonable risks lending money to buy houses at reasonable rates, or re-financing the loans of people who might save enough money to actually be able to afford the mortgage payments at the new, lower rate. How would Democrats feel about separating kids at 9th grade depending on grades? I really don’t know. I’d have to know what the rest of the program was like as well. In some systems, I’d be against it, in other systems I’d be willing to experiment and see how it went. On the whole, I’m for experiment in the educational system as long as the experiments can be evaluated in a decent way, and as long as the experiments are set up more or less in advance as much as possible. I saw one wonderful experimental school near Boston called The Sudbury Valley Day School which was set up along the lines of Summerhill in England. No grades, but the students evaluated each other’s work and they had to produce a significant project at the end of their time there to graduate. They also knew what the Massachusetts was, and each kid was responsible for mastering it using whatever resources the school could offer him. It was a brilliant success. When other area schools had snow days, the kids at this school were pushing their parents to get them there. Amazing. This Democrat was all for it. I was very impressed by the four points raised by Mike in his posting # 185. I was so impressed that I checked out the article he quoted. I found the remaining six points even more impressive than the four he quoted, and I would urge those interested in real education reform to have a look at them as well. I feel that they offer an important addition to the four points that Mike raised. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
In the middle of an article that was somewhat more neutral that this excerpt would indicate, I found this passage. I'm offering it because It raises a point that I've reached for several times but have never been able to articulate on my own about the support of the Democrats and the support of the Republicans in today's political framework. I think think some of the things the article as a whole has to says about OWS in comparison with the Tea Party Movement are illuminating as well. To get those, of course, you'd have to have a look at the article itself. quote: I'm hoping that this Washington Post article might bring us back on track for what might be an interesting discussion yet to come. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44997227/ns/us_news-life/ Oakland? Cause or pretext . . . . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I don't know if you caught this, John, since the article you cited made no mention of it, but in the early hours of Wednesday morning a protester was injured while police were trying to evict the OWS folks from Oakland. He was struck in the head by a police projectile, according to the radio report I heard, and fell to the ground. He lost consciousness on the way to the hospital and is in serious but stable condition there. Reports were that he suffered a fractured skull. He is a marine veteran of two tours in (I believe) Iraq and is a member of veterans against the war. Oakland police say they are investigating and say that they are unsure that the Oakland Police are even involved. While that last clause may well be true, I'm afraid they did themselves little good by including it — if in fact they did — in their statement. |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
They may have said that Bob, because, according to reports I've heard, several police agencies were used. But, they beleive he was struck by a teargas canister. The mayor should resign, or have a list of heads she's going to let roll. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Why were the cops throwing teargas? . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/occupy-oakland-did-police-use-flashbangs-and-rubber-bullets-on-protesters/2011/10/26/gIQAL4pOJM_blog.html See the above article for a bit more detail. It indicated that the Oakland Protesters had been throwing M-80's and other stuff at them. The Police were attempting — as I understand it — to evict the protesters. There is some dispute as to what sort of measures were used by whom, what the order was and so on. The violence is what's hit the news; we don't know what negotiations went on beforehand from this limited account, and I haven't tracked down further accounts thus far. I think it's too early to form an informed opinion at this point, at least for me, but if anybody else feels they have one, I'd be interested in hearing what it is. I can't imagine anybody is very happy with anybody else at this point, and clearly the Oakland police was predicting that the situation might easily be one that would be beyond their ability to deal with on their own, hence the presence of other police on the scene. Just as clearly, there were command and control problems, since it was against policy for Oakland police to use rubber Bullets and CS gas and, I believe, flash-bang grenades, and all these things seem to have been used, as well as bird-shot filled bean-bag rounds. If they were against Oakland Police policy and they were used in an Oakland Police operation, then there was not adequate training, or command control and supervision of the operation, and that coordination seems to have come back to bite them firmly on their rear ends. At least it seems that way to me at first blush. I hope that at least begins to answer your question, John. Throwing firecrackers (M-80's used to be equivalent to a quarter stick of dynamite, we used to say; I don't know how true it was, but it never stopped us from saying it) and other things at police that, no matter how professional they are, have got to be edgy and spooked can't be good public relations, either. I'd like to know more about why the police were called in, and what that was about. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Obviously, it's not a tea party rally. I'd love to be the reporter asking Pelosi, that in light of the fact that she trembled and felt afraid that we were lapsing back into the turmoil of the 60's, based on the tea partiers, how she feels now with the OWLS, whom she asks God to bless. Actually, I won't be that reporter because that reporter doesn't exist.....not gonna happen. |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
The movement is far too grounded in non-violence for there to have been an organic causation here, assuming there was cause at all. History, including OWS history, is full of provacateurs. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Were the cops throwing M-80s? Were they doing anything to intentionally injure anyone? Should they have worn red coats? . |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
*sigh* It makes you long for the peaceful protest days of the Tea Party, doesn't it? |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Certainly wouldn't be the first time, John /pip/Forum6/HTML/002111.html |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: Not true at all Bob as it happens, but it certainly was a popular misconception. Dynamite uses high explosives, M80's contained low explosives. For anyone interested the difference is the speed of decomposition which is subsonic for low explosives and supersonic for high explosives. The original M80 was banned in 1966 though there are still legally available firecrackers carrying the M80 name (or a derivative) but they're restricted to 50 mg of low explosive material, a big drop from the original which contained up to 5 g. Based on the video footage I've looked at the majority of the devices used in Oakland were more likely M84 stun grenades issued to police and security forces to disperse or disorientate crowds in the open or individuals in buildings prior to a forced entry. The common name for devices such as this is 'flash-bang' because that's what they do when deployed - they create a large blinding flash of light and a loud bang accompanied by a cloud of white smoke. They're technically classed as non-lethal devices although there are cases where they have been fatal. . |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Is this a misconception that might have been popular with those doing the throwing? Has anyone ever been seriously injured by an M80? . |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: Yes, that's why they were banned and replaced by the less powerful version. . |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. There is no record of anyone being harmed by the less powerful version? . |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
Numerous minor injuries have occurred that involved the less powerful version Huan,and at least one accidental fatality has occurred when a box of M80 like firecrackers detonated simultaneously inside a car. There's also a couple of suicides on record where M80 like firecrackers were used but to my knowledge nobody wearing full riot gear has ever been killed, seriously injured or even slightly harmed by the legally available version. . |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. So it's ok to throw M80s at cops? How about rocks, glass bottles, etc? What is the limit? http://ironicsurrealism.com/2011/10/26/meet-the-face-of-occupyoakland-riot-all-my-heroes-kill-cops-photo/ . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
You might be asking the wrong people, John. The assumption seems to be that somebody here would be able to answer a question about when it's reasonable to assault police, and I think there is no evidence to support such an assumption. I was active in the sixties and I wouldn't and didn't support such a proposition. You might ask some of the militia organizations who train with such potential confrontations in mind. I was the one who offered the article with the information about the M-80's. Exactly how M-80's would show up among protestors is a bit of a puzzle to me, and the explanation that they may have been flash-bangs certainly makes as much sense, since there was evidence of flash-bangs being used. I couldn't say, myself, and I wonder how anybody else can with the information that I've seen made available. OIf course if there's information available that isn't some sort of speculative elaboration on the reports I've already seen, I'd be pleased to learn from it. In the mreantime, I think that violence is a particularly deceptive tool to use, no matter who uses it. It gives the illusion of having solved more problems than it actually does solve because of the rage and resentment it so frequently leaves behind. I'd have to so no amount of violence is right to inflict on police, and that when police inflict violence of whatever sort, it frequently comes back to haunt them in uncomfortable ways afterward. It's best if violence can be avoided entirely. I think. Were you suggesting something different? |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
quote: |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
quote: |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
quote: |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Maybe Oakland needs a republican mayor??? Just askin'... |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I am not clear how the response above follows the previous ones. It offers no new information, nor does it offer rebuttal. Perhaps an explanation of the way the response is directed at the subject would clear my confusion and perhaps the confusion of others up here. As for myself, I had no idea as to the party affiliation of the mayor of Oakland, nor did I think it particularly mattered. Nor did I know of the consent decree, though that certainly seems to fit the difficulty in command and control that I thought the police were experiencing in integrating a multi-force group with apparently different policies about the use of force who seemed to be following orders that didn't seem coordinated, and for which the Oakland Police deny responsibility. It seems to me that there is plenty of decent police work in the world to defend. If this is good police-work, then it ought to be defended as good police-work, and the specific things that made it good police-work should be cited and praised so all of us can feel some pride in seeing how good police work mis carried out. If there is poor police-work involved, there should be the same honesty. What didn't work should be pointed out so that lessons can be learned, and so that proper adjustments in policy and procedure can be made to protect the police from future criticism on the same grounds and to protect the public from further damage, psychological and perhaps physical that can come from such failures? Failure to learn from experience is unnecessary. It is also expensive in more ways than fiscally. The phrase about the Oakland Police being in the eighth year of a five year consent decree leaps vividly to mind in this regard. Just sayin'. |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
I think I see your logic there Mike, and it might work. Republican ideology is resulting in shrinking law enforcement agencies across the nation, get a Republican mayor...shrink the OPD down to nothing! Give the rich another tax cut, problem solved! |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Thank you, LR, for seeing the light. After all, if you give the rich another tax cut, they won't be out there robbing people at gunpoint! I know it's just coincidence that, if you look at the top ten cities with the highest crime rates in the country, they mainly point to one specific party. Of course if you look at the top ten with the highest unemployment rates, you'll find the same. The reasoniong is pretty simple, as simple as your comment. With democrat leaders assuring people that they really don't have to work for a living, that everyone else owes them a living, that they are entitled to have whatever everyone else has, it stands to reason that, when people who actually work for a living don't give them what they want, they feel they have the right to just take it....sounds like the Democrat way to me. New word in English... Ineptocracy (in-ept-o-cra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
The rich seem to be better at confiscating it than the poor, apparently, and at getting welfare to transfer more of it in their direction, otherwise the concentration of wealth would not be growing in the top One percent. Would it? Certainly it could be coincidental that this transfer of wealth seems to have been roughly simultaneous with the growth in power of the conservative movement, the increase in deregulation and the institution of trickle-down economics. It may be possible that coinservative politics in the Federal gfovernment has made people more lazy and inept and dependant, as you suggest. I think it may be just as likely that it may be attributed in almost equal measure to the relative spinelessness of the Democratic politicians and their unwillingness to stand up for the liberal policies that built this country into an economic powerhouse and tamed, at least to some extent, the tyranny of the business cycles in the years following world war two and well into the sixties. Apparently the Reasoning that's been offered is that the longer conservative ideas and policies are given any credence, the duller and less ambitious the American people become. I'm sorry that a conservative Republican has become so discouraged at the policies of his own party and the influence they've had on the nation as a whole. It's sad to see. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Actually, handouts didn't build this country into an economic powerhouse, Bob. Business did. Hard work did. Capitalism did, not people sitting around waiting for their next umemployment check, not people screaming that the government wasn't doing enough for them. It was people cashing in on the American dream, the dream that stated that one's opportunities were endless and subject only to the man's drive and determination. There are people using the American dream today...only they are foreigners coming here to learn, study and work to be a success. They appreciate the dream....Americans don't. The people who built this country would smile sadly as to what it has become. When did democrats go from the party of "Ask not what your country can do for you...?" to "Let the government take care of you"? Who knows, but I'll bet JFK would be spinning in his grave to see what his party has become. Ask what you can do for your country?? A ridiculous concept, right, Bob? |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
quote: [Edited - Ron] Without that initial 'handout' there really wouldn't have been any work to do, but if you want to have a conversation with my Native American side of the family I think they might have another word for it. If you think OWS is about handouts, and sure thats what the highly paid Fox people are paid to tell the middle class (blame the poor!), then you're really missing the point [Edited - Ron] Expect a thread soon from me though on how the Bannana Republican narrative is crumbling all around, but, like Japanese soldiers who don't know the war is over they just keep on banging that same old beat..... [This message has been edited by Ron (10-28-2011 06:41 PM).] |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: Is it ok to throw stuff at cops? Yes, I believe that in some situations throwing stuff at cops is ok. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Is it ok for cops to throw stuff back? . |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: No, a police officer is generally held to higher standards than a protester, that means they're not expected to instigate the violence either. . |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Throwing back is instigating? |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Given the kind of protection cops now wear, what caliber can the stuff it is sometimes ok to throw at them be? . |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: No Mike. I used instigate in the context of start - they shouldn't throw stuff back or instigate (start) the throwing. quote: I'm not sure that there is an upper limit. It'd probably depend on the situation and what was readily available. If the cops are policing a friendly St. Patrick's day parade - maybe shamrocks? If the whole Iranian police force was marching towards downtown Israel a small nuclear device perhaps? . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: I'm quoting myself here, Mike. You didn't respond the first time I said it, you tried to change the subject and talk about capitalism, as if I had anything against an appropriately regulated capitalist economy. I don't. You may have missed my statements to that effect over the years, so I will reaffirm those now as well. My comments were about deregulation and unregulated capitalism and what has been the consequence to the country of an attempt to return to that stae of affairs. Bad for the country, good for those with money. Some upward mobility is possible, but it seems considerably less than when unbridled capitalism is regulated and mega-mergers are discouraged and competition is encouraged. Increased concentration of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people may be fine for those people, but it is not good for the country as a whole. The same people that did very well under a better regulated economy are taking it in the ear under the current conservative style of economics. Has our former middle class suddenly been struck with laziness or have the conservatives been struck with a case of selective blindness and deafness? I've heard your answer, above. Republicans and conservatives have been making that same argument with equal tenacity while the middle class has been shrinking and the poor have been growing for thirty years and more. I suggest to you that the nature of people has probably not changed all that much, and what has changed is that the economic system in which they've been working has been selectively stacked against them over that period of time. We know it's been changed because the Right has gone about changing it and has been proud of the changes it's made and it trying to make more of the same. I'm glad, however, to hear a republican say nice things about immigrants. It's a bit sad, since you find them such a plus, that Republicans as a party are working so hard to keep so many of them out of the country, and that the Republican Party tries so hard to nmake the path to citizenship for them so difficult. It seems sort of wrong-headed to me. Fortunately, I don't have to deal with that contradiction. My party is screwy enough. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.” http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/10/obama-if-we-l ose-in-2012-government-will-tell-people-youre-on-your-own/ How that sentence got past the editor at ABC . . . The Right is undercover everywhere. . |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Self-reliance??? That WOULD be scary to may people! |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Among other things, we have a cultural and religious issue here. When I studied aikido as a young man, every time we stepped into the dojo, we bowed twice, from the floor. The first time was to a picture of the O-sensei, who put the art together; the picture was on an altar at the front of the dojo. The second time, it was to the mat. I could understand bowing to the O-sensei; he was as much philosopher and saint as he was warrior, but the mat? One of the senior students explained it succinctly: "We bow to the mat that keeps us from breaking our backs," is what she said. But it was more complex that even that. It epitomized a mind-view that has some uniquely buddhist elements that you can see in the study of aikido and many other of the Japanese martial arts. It suggests that there is a web of obligations that you owe those about you and the art itself that you can only repay by a constant return of right actions. When training, you are respectful of your partner. Your partner is not your enemy, he or she is your helper in the learning process, and you want to help preserve them so they will be there to practice with you tomorrow. In this regard, to think about self reliance in life is a childlike illusion. You do not know how to do proper leading of incoming force. You do not understand one-pointedness or Ki. You depend not only on your sensei to show you and guide you, but on your fellow students to throw you so you can practice falling. Gradually it dawns on you that this particular martial art is not the only this like this. Is there something wrong with being self-reliant? That would have to depend on how you view self-reliance, and what relationship you believe that puts you in with others, wouldn't it? Some kinds of self-reliance are enormously destructive to others and can and often do provoke retaliation. Predatory Capitalism can fall into this category. I offer, as examples, two similar situations a hundred years apart without going into a lot of detail. The predation began with profit motive in mind and became political in both cases. In the first case, the British wanted a market for opium and forced a market open in China, starting the opium wars to help out the East India Company. Today, the various drug cartels are vying for market share in the US. These cartels are models of Predatory Capitalism, which have formed to fill the need of an artificially created market. They are examples of self-reliance run amok. They are examples of what happens when one player in a system forgets that he or she is only a member of a self-regulating system. The system tends to self-correct when everything is functioning well. That's when everything is going well. Somebody else will have to write the chapter on chaos theory. In the meantime, now that you folks have yours, what about the people that used to have theirs in the middle class, and now, acting as self-reliantly as they could and through no particular fault of their own, don't. What would the self-reliant thing be for them to do to you? Or do you have different models for how you are supposed to act self-reliantly in relation to others and for how others are supposed to act self-reliantly in relation to you? If the wealthy can get welfare from the poor at least as far back as the railroads getting enormous land-grants on either sides of their free rights of way across the West and currently in terms of tax cuts and other goodies, why shouldn't the poor get them from the pockets of the rich as well? Why is one Okay and the other not? Self-reliance, my Grandfather's popsicle franchise. |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Poor schmoor. They should do the time honored traditional thing that built this country. Hard work. If. they cant find jobs they should either sell themselves into indentured servitude, or capture and enslave someone who does have a job so they can CAPITALize on their hard work. You know, the hard work that built this nation. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Hard work is a concept lost on many these days....and I had no idea your grandfather has a popsicle franchise!! |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Didn't. But they were both cool dudes anyway. Hard work didn't save lots of people whose jobs got traded out from underneath them, or whose jobs were downsized, or whose jobs their managers got bonuses for eliminating.. Nor are those people lazy, as I see a lot of Republicans suggesting. These losses are artifacts of an economic slowdown which the Republicans seem to be making worse by voting against the pump priming measures that have worked in dealing with such events in the past. Capitalism is a fine economic system, but it needs to be watched carefully to keep it from running away with itself. In terms of systems, feed-back loops keep systems in control fairly successfully while feed-front loops tend to send systems racing out of control and into self destructive speed-ups that the system can't tolerate very quickly. Economies function that way; steering works that way; and engines work that way. So do unchecked populations. I believe the result is roughly the same in each case and can — I think — be graphed as a J-curve, starting out slowly, then rising very quickly indeed to a catastrophic end. Maybe somebody with more math than I have might check me on this. The catastrophic crash for feed front governing seems clear. The nature of the curve does apply to populations without controls with no limits in food and no significant predation, and is the standard Malthusian curve. My intuition suggests its applicability to the other situations. We've been busy taking controls off Capitalism for thirty years. Overcontrol: Bad. Too much encouragement with no brakes: Worse. The system becomes increasingly chaotic and unstable. Just sayin'. [This message has been edited by Bob K (10-29-2011 05:55 PM).] |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “Safety Commissioner Bill Gibbons said it was unrealistic to meet requests from protesters for a stronger law enforcement presence to help deter thefts and altercations often involving homeless people who had attached themselves to the encampment. "We don't have the resources to go out and in effect babysit protesters 24-7 ... at the level that would have been necessary to address their concerns," Gibbons said during a press conference Friday.” http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/10/29/20111029nashville- occupy-protests-curfew-arrests-ON.html One doesn’t know where to begin . . . Maybe the protesters have some M80s. . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
In this case, it appears that the police were under orders to exceed their actual authority. I think that it is unfair to put police in a position like this. The folks issuing the orders don't appear to be putting themselves into any danger; the police are, and the protestors, who are not apparently in violation on any law in that jurisdiction are being baited to see if they can be provoked into reacting badly to police intrusions on legal actions. It seems like a pretty cynical way of using working folks to me to undercut first amendment rights to protest. Thank heavens there are Republicans in place to blame the people who are behaving legally. I don't know what we'd do otherwise. |
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Balladeer
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"This country wasn't built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth. Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than its neighbors. ... Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil." --novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982) |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Occupy Phoenix asks "When should you shoot a cop"? Really? Really? http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2011/10/28/occupy_phoenix_asks_when_should_you_shoot_a_cop |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I enjoy much of Ms. Rand's fiction. Her history is faulty. She scrambles it with her own personal mythology. Many of us are guilty of that. It is perhaps unfair to Ms. Rand to pick out a piece of her writing based on mythology as a basis for a philosophical position statement. I know that she attempted to be more rigorous at times. Many of the states were in fact land grants to people or corporations. The boundaries were vaguely laid out. Governorships were handed out frequently as rewards or as marks of royal favor, as they were in other lands run by the crown, including Ireland. This was, at least in the beginning of the colonization, the era of the divine rights of Kings. King James, who came to the throne directly after Elizabeth died, wrote one of the original books on the subject. Charles the First, who tried governing without a Parlement, lost his head over the matter. His colonial policy was devoted to handouts in return for cash, and that policy was pretty much the way things went, with an interlude for Cromwell. Mythology isn't history. The governments in the Colonies here in the States was as corrupt as any in England. The government repeatedly gave land away, frequently land that didn't belong to it. Sorry. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: I know that Katie Pavlitch makes that claim, Denise. If you have other sources, I know nothing about them. I have no other sources. I know that Ms. Pavlitch is drawing inferences about Mr. Ayers. Why Mr. Ayers would show up in an article about an unsourced letter in Phoenix tells me that Ms. Pavlitch has to reach across 40 years and the distance from Phoenix to Chicago to make a connection; and only then does so by reaching to the President first. The strands of her reasoning are pretty slack. Slackest of all is any sort of reasoning that connects the letter with anybody who does anything with any thinking or planning elements of OWS Phoenix. If she wasn’t trying to do that, her attempted connection with the President and Mr. Ayers would be completely puzzling instead of merely tending toward being extraneous nonsense. So, who wrote the letter, Denise? Near as I can tell, anybody can show up at these OWS gatherings as long as they’re reasonably polite. They can be from any political point of view, they can say what they want, they can make whatever suggestions they want. If they have something that catches folks interest, people will listen; if not, people will ignore them. Could somebody have written and distributed the letter? Well, yeah. Since when is this an uncommon point of view in the United States, especially when you’re supporting a law that isn’t exactly popular. Revenue agent anywhere, but especially in the southern hill country? Border agent or customs agent along a stressed border crossing area? ATF Agent investigating the legality of an arms cache which you hear is supposed to contain illegal automatic weapons? Drug Agents almost anywhere? I’d put money on there being a low popularity of anti-terrorism and FBI agents anyplace where people regard themselves as freedom fighters, or as people standing up for their God-given American rights to gather and to protest. That, Denise, would be on any particular side of a political issue. I’d mention the various Militia groups from the Right wing as well as anybody from the left as well. The left hasn’t been very big on this sort of thing for a long time in this country. I don’t think it’s likely that they’re big on it now; but it could be possible. If they do, it’s criminal activity, just like any other sort of criminal activity, and should be pursued that way, investigated that way, and, if necessary, punished that way. Ummm — but before any of that happens, shouldn’t we actually have facts and maybe a crime before we jump straight ahead to the punishment part of things? I'm personally against shooting anyone at all. The last I heard, the only one who’d actually been seriously hurt was one of the protesters, and that was from an over-reaction on the part of the police. Whipping up police hysteria with articles like this seems pretty dodgy to me, and the outcome appears to be the likelihood of more casualties among the protesters. That seems a pity, because the protesters and the police could actually cooperate in a lot of this if they can find a way of talking together and working toward common goals. It really should be possible. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
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I wouldn't think that a letter like that would be signed, Bob. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Then why act as though it was? |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
Larkin Rose wrote the words - not sure if he produced the flyer or not. He's an odd bloke. |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Here's all that needs to be said about the OWS movement: http://biggovernment.com/publius/2011/10/31/the-99-the-official-list-of-occupywallstreets-supporters-sponsors-and-sympathizers/ |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: If you mean that even people you don't like or generally agree with sometimes get things right - then I agree. . |
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Balladeer
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since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Denise, I agree completely. That's a very telling, and unsurprising, list. |
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Balladeer
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since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
After all - JUST WHO - are the WALL STREET BANKERS? The vast majority are JEWS - and the others are SPIRITUAL JEW materialists, who would sell their own mother's gold teeth for a PROFIT. And MORE and MORE people are AWARE of this truth, are not only NOT afraid to TALK ABOUT IT - they're shouting it on WALL STREET! I urgently URGE all of you to TAKE PART and JOIN IN when these protests hit your neck of the woods. Produce some flyers EXPLAINING the "JEW BANKER" influence - DON'T wear anything marking you as an "evil racist" - and GET OUT THERE and SPREAD the WORD! Put as a "contact point" on your literature, our (url removed) address - it won't immediately "scare off" some of these scaredy-cats for even looking at our FACTS - for FACTS they ARE! If you are unable to produce your own leaflets - check out the "support" section of our website - there are a LOT of good flyers there to utilize. American Nazi Party Obviously it's not your average Tea Party. |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
quote: Probably not your average OWS protester either. |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
BTW Mike, the link in your post takes you to a site that is flagged by my Virus software as having pages that contain 'unsafe or malicious' content. You may want to remove it in case anyone clicks on it that doesn't have adequate or up to date Anti-Virus software. . |
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Balladeer
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Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Really? That list tells a different story. I didn't see the Nazis, communists, marxists, hezbollah, north koreans supporting the tea party, nor were any calls for Jewish heads to roll. The protestors are pawns, little more, cheered on by every anti-democracy and anti-American group and country on the planet, it seems. |
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Balladeer
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since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Thanks, Uncas. I hadn't clicked on it and wasn't aware. I'll change it. What's this world coming to when you can't trust a Nazi?? |
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Uncas Member
since 2010-07-30
Posts 408 |
The sad truth is that the site has probably been infected by a hacker to 'punish' anyone visiting the site. . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Did you check any of the supporters of the Arizona anti-immigrant law? They not only supported the law, but helped draft it, as I pointed out at the time. The Southern Poverty Law Center had a fair amount to say about that. In this case, the implication is that if one supports the OWS in any way, then one is siding withese these groups. If that is not the implication my right wing friends are offering, now would be the time to make that explicit. If it is the implication they are offering, this would be the time to stop pussyfooting around and actually say so. The support that my right wing friends here offered the anti-immigrant law in Arizona did not make them nazis. I disagreed with their support then and I continue to do so now. I feel their support for the movement in Arizona puts them on the wrong side of several constitutional issues in my opinion. My feelings about the OWS folks does not make me a communist or a nazi. My own sympathies are more on the socialist side of the spectrum, but I'll settle for being a Democrat. If anybody thinks I'm a nazi, I'd respectfully suggest that they're wrong. If anybody suggests I'm a fundamentalist Muslim or Christian or Jew, I'd suggest you're wrong. I would suggest that if you're trying to say that folks who support the OWS movement are likely to be any of these things, I'd probably have to say that you're wrong as well. I would say that the folks who support the OWS movement are probably people who are upset at the role business has been taking in the government of the country, and at how the country as a whole is being used as a result of this. Respectfully I suggest that if you're looking for a sinister conspiracy, you're looking in the wrong places. We've been trying to experiment with trickle down economics for thirty years now. It's become increasingly clear that money floats up, like cream. What trickles down is nowhere near as wholesome, and that people are not particularly interested in wallowing in it any more. We want a middle class again. You don't need some whack-a-doodle conspiracy theory to explain that; it's really pretty straightforward. |
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Balladeer
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since 1999-06-05
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When one has a movement that gets endorsed by: Communist Party USA American Nazi Party Revolutionary Communist Party Black Panthers Communist party of China Hezbollah International Socialist Organion Marxist Student Union Iran and North Korea Then I would suggest you re-think your movement. To be endorsed by countries that allow no basic freedoms or individual rights should tell you something. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
When one takes the trouble to read the footnotes in the article quoted by Denise and Mike, one understands why so many otherwise opposing views would tend to agree about this. I don't particularly enjoy several of the points of view, and I don't agree with some of the perceptions of the causes of the difficulty, but almost all of these folks have noted that there is a great deal of inequity in the world, and certainly in the US. They are correct. They almost all say that the disparity in wealth between the richest and the poorest folks creates an instability in the world in general and in the US in particular. The Islamists believe that this sort of idiocy will cause the downfall of the West. These beliefs do not constitute a support of OWS, if you look at it; though support from Islamists might be the start of some sort of diplomatic point of discussion and might prove useful, this appears merely a further critique of western culture from the outside. The comments may point out part of the problem with predatory capitalism, which tends to destroy its host unless kept under tight controls. Capitalism does not have to function this way. The comments from the communists and the socialists offer support and solidarity in the struggle against massive economic inequality and the hardship it imposes. Frankly, it's a message that's a lot more meaningful than the current right wing message that we should turn over more power and control to large economic institutions and allow the Right wing political organizations they own to destroy the economic safety net that this country's built up to deal with this sort of situation since the thirties. This is after thirty years of destroying enough of the basic protections to produce the slough of despond that we are now wallowing in. While I don't like or agree with everyone on the hit-list of unpopular ideas, it seems fairly clear that the folks who wrote the articles in the first place probably depended on researchers and didn't bother to read them; and that they hoped that none of their right wing readers would bother to do so either. Very few of the ideas in the list, including the ideas from China, Iran and North Korea were ideas that couldn't be understood or weren't relevant to the situation. They said that Western Capitalism in general and American Capitalism in particular are in trouble. The Republican party is pretty much campaigning on that issue right now. But even the anti-semitic ideas the Nazis put forward, repulsive as they are, tried to focus on the problems of economic inequity that are blighting our country and much of the world at this time. In general, I "support" the critique that the OWS folks are making. That doesn't make me somebody who supports everything that everybody who says he's affiliated with OWS says, any more than it makes everybody who's a Republican responsible for everything that David Dukes says. |
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Balladeer
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056887/Oakland-protesters-vandalise-banks-smash-shop-windows.html |
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Balladeer
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Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
THE TWO FACES OF NANCY PELOSI Pelosi on the Tea Party: I saw this myself in the late 70's in San Francisco, this kind of rhetoric was very frightening and it gave/it created a climate in which we/ violence took place and I wish we would all again curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made. I think they have to take responsibility for any incitement they may cause.¡± http://romanticpoet.wordpress.com/tag/nancy-pelosi-tea-party/ Pelosi on OWS: During a press conference Thursday afternoon, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi praised those participating in the ¡°Occupy Wall Street¡± protests. "God bless them," Pelosi said, for their spontaneity. It'Ss independent ¡ it's young, it's spontaneous, and it's focused. And it's going to be effective. ¡°The message of the protesters is a message for the establishment everyplace,¡± said the House Democrats¡¯ leader. ¡°No longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street.¡± Pelosi did not comment on and was not asked about the law-breaking that occurred during the protest over the weekend. About 700 protesters were arrested by New York City police after the protesters swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge and shut down a lane of traffic for several hours, according to CBS News. When the Tea Party movement emerged in 2009, then-Speaker of the House Pelosi called them ¡°astroturf and un-American people who were carrying swastikas. http://dancingczars.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/pelosi-on-occupy-wall-street- protesters-god-bless-them/ |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: I'd be interested in knowing where these folks came from. I've never seen shields used by protesters at a demonstration, and this particular piece of information — that there were dozens of them — shows up in a number of accounts. I'd like to know who they are as well. The reports about the difficulties in New York, about the friction with the surrounding community, may have some basis in fact. Apparently drumming is a feature in the protests, and this is a burden for the folks living in the area and for the small businesses that are trying to stay afloat in the area. |
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Balladeer
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Knowing where they came from? Bob, just give it a little thought, please. They are the second wave, that's all. They are the calvary after the foot soldiers did their part. I think some of the orignal protestors realize now they were used, manipulated. They were spurred into action by constant talk of class inequality, rich against poor, 1% taking advantage of 99%, etc, etc, etc, and they decided to protest . Did they protest against the government? No, they went after the banks and corporations. Ok, so they were upset and easy to lead. I have nothing bad to say about them, except the fact they didn't realize they were being used. They acted decently, they cleaned up after themselves, and basically just banded together to express their views. True, they had no solutions or anything but it allowed them to let off steam. So much for them. Now that they were used to get the ball rolling, the REAL wave comes in....the anarchists, the thugs, the troublemakers, the union goons...in to take over. The original protestors are not needed any more....and they are beginning to realize it. Many have left. Others are protesting the protestors. The decent ones want nothing to do with what it is turning into. In the link I gave, there is a picture that says it all...a broken window from a rock or bottle with a sign under it saying, "This is not who we are." No, I can't prove it but I can picture a peaceful demonstrator putting up that sign after seeing the damage, ashamed of what their peaceful protests have turned into. It's now in the hands of the troublemakers, as I believe it was planned from the beginning, orchestrated by the White House. No, Bob, I know you won't buy that but it doesn't matter to me. Now that they have shut down the port of a major city, committed repeated acts of vandalism, closed businesses, started fires, smashed windows.....where is condemnation from the left....from Pelosi...from Obama? If these acts had been conducted by the tea party do you really think Obama would not have condemned it by now? You won't see it. The plan is working well. The original protestors? The decent ones will not be feeling very good about how it has turned out or how they were used. This whole scenario could have been taken out of The Art of War. Obama is showing that he will stop at nothing to get re-elected. One can only hope it will blow up in his face. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. "It's now in the hands of the troublemakers, as I believe it was planned from the beginning, orchestrated by the White House" I don't believe this. I believe they're simply not letting it go to waste. . |
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Balladeer
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Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
My opinion, Huan. There was too much talk about class inequality, tax breaks for the rich, evil corporations, CEO bonuses. Every day, every Obama speech touched on them. Every speech at town hall meeting, the same. Was Obama pushing for something like OWS? Absolutely...imho. He's done everything he can to incite the lower classes and the unemployed to rise against the upper class. He's not a dummy. Don't sell him short. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I don't even know if all the shields looked the same, Mike. I'm looking for data. If I knew the answers, I wouldn't ask or speculate. If you have any harder information to support the suggestions you're making, I'd be interested in knowing about it; but all I've see so far is the same basic information you referenced in your link shuffled around in a few different ways and spun a bit differently to fit different political agendas. More information may come out in the news tonight. I have some serious doubts about union goons, having been part of one or two union demonstrations in my time. All we had were the same yutzes I was working with five days a week, and none of us could memorize the words to "Solidarity Forever." There must have been goons someplace, of course, but I never saw any. Maybe in management. Shutting down that particular shelter may not have been such a great idea, either. I don't know what the timing of that actually was. And Oakland has a history of being a fairly radical community with skittish relations with the police. I don't see the problem with the occupation of an empty building, personally, though setting fires in trash containers was provocative in the extreme. I'd like to see those responsible for that arrested since it puts the community in danger. I would also like to see arrests of those responsible for the vandalism of windows and whatever other damage was done. The demonstrations are supposed to be non-violent. The reports say that 70,000 people were there during daylight hours, and that they policed themselves quite well. Only after that crowd went home did things change. I'd like to know what happened, not your fantasy or mine about what happened, but the actual events and their sequence as accurately as possible. I won't trouble you with my fantasy of what happened. It should suffice to say that it's different from yours, and that it has no more facts to support it than yours, so I'll say it's perhaps only slightly less plausible than yours because yours had nothing to do with Boston Ballet's entire Corps de Ballet and lots of cocoa butter. Less plausible but a lot more fun. The closer the destination, the more you're slip-slidin' away-hay! |
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Balladeer
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No problem, Bob. I gave my opinion based on how the scenario appears to me. Your acceptance or rejection of it is immaterial, although I appreciate the time you spend letting me know. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
You don't need President Obama to get such a thing going. The banks, the CEOs, the Insurance Companies, the unemployment, the destruction of the social support network, the cuts in help to the poor, the massive transfer in aid to the rich when reported even with reasonable restraint by a free press has an effect on people. President Obama is hardly a firebrand leader and he's been much more conciliatory than many on the Democratic side of things would like him to be. He's much more of a centrist than anything else; and suggesting that he's anything else is simply ignoring how very far to the right the country has come in the past 30 or so years. I thought that Ronald Reagan was much too far to the right ever to get elected as president in this country, and he is probably the furthest left a Republican president since seems to have ventured; and quite possibly any president at all. The health care bill that President Obama got passed is far to the right of the one that Bill Clinton tried to get through. As an example. The class warfare of the rich upon the poor is and has been brutal and increasingly obvious. The wonder is that the middle class and the poor haven't acted long before this, not that there is this tiny amount of disturbance now. |
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Balladeer
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Tiny amount of disturbance.....uh, ok [This message has been edited by Balladeer (11-03-2011 08:08 PM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Yes, tiny. Amounts of disturbance around issues like this have toppled governments and led to armed insurrections. What we have here is a series of pretty much determinedly peaceful occupations and protests across the country, not armed uprisings such as we've seen in the middle east. Considering the potential amount of rage stirred up about the dissolution of the middle class for the benefit of the super rich, I'd say tiny was not only appropriate but actually a reasonably conservative word choice. Given the sweep of things I stated in the posting upon which you commented, the fact that the comment was upon my word choice in characterizing the degree of national upset strikes me as hysterically funny. I was puzzled by the lack of smiley faces at the end of it. Good gracious, me oh my! |
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Balladeer
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It was actually the only part I considered worthy of comment. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “He's done everything he can to incite the lower classes and the unemployed to rise against the upper class.” “The event was heavily populated by well-paid government employees, with some 18% of Oakland's city workers and 5% of its teachers taking holidays to go rioting against their own city and taxpayers. . . This is OWS' dirty little secret. They're not the poor or downtrodden. The Daily Caller and New York Post investigated the backgrounds of the 700 people arrested last month for shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge and found nearly all of them to be trust-fund idlers from well-off homes. “ http://news.investors.com/Article/590526/201111031848/Protest-Turns-Upside-Down.htm . |
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Balladeer
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Exactly, John. Those ARRESTED were not the lower class or unemployed. That's my point... |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Never having heard of the paper John was quoting from, I checked it out in Wikipedia. I found out that it offered business advice, which I was not qualified to assess, and an editorial page. Wiki included this anecdote about their editorials, which seemed to me to fit the internal contradictions inherent in the editorial whose link I followed. Wiki said: quote: Exactly what the point was that Mike said he was making remains unclear. Presumably, if we are to know exactly what the point it that is being made, that point should not be so obscure as to puzzle a reasonably literate reader, so I would appreciate an explanation pitched to a level that even my poor powers of understanding might make sense of it. If I don't understand, the odds are that somebody else whose less bold about their ignorance is simply politely keeping silent. |
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Balladeer
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Bob, I feel my stance was made to be clear enough to any reasonably literate reader. I have no time or desire to repeat it ... [This message has been edited by Ron (11-04-2011 07:34 PM).] |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Mester Make, I went yo ta no det me an ma dag git it . |
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Balladeer
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Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Thank you, john. My regards and a pat to Rufus! |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
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I was not asking about your stance, Mike. Your stance is clear. Your stance is also personal, and I was trying to keep my question focused on the subject and what you actually meant about the subject. What you actually meant about the subject was not clear. Your earlier comment was about a plan constructed in the President's office to swing the election. It requires a level of planning and skill and coordination that no Democrat I have met has ever been capable of mustering. It also requires a level of skill in the management of mobs that mobs do not respond to. As a condition for the acceptance of this plan, the right wing uses evidence that appears to require the public almost literally buy a piece of the Brooklyn Bridge. Mike says that the plot that he is describing about thugs trying to take over the country on the direction of sinister forces from the White House is exactly the conclusion come to in an article that John quotes. I can't evaluate the information this paper offers about investment. I offered a quote about the quality of their editorial policy in which they made assertions about Stephen Hawking which were not only wrong, but were wildly, risibly, foolishly wrong, and which were in fact rebutted by Hawking himself. The quotation offered by John in his excerpt and the article itself were riddled with "difficulties." quote: These figures are unsourced. If they were accurate, and their accuracy is possible for all I know, since I haven’t sourced them myself, I would suggest that OWS presents itself as a broad-based organization, one the attempts to represent the 99% of people who have been in many ways left out of the boom enjoyed by the 1% over the past 30 years in general, and the past 10 years or so in particular. Many of these people are lucky to be earning the same as they were in 1980. The article makes no attempt to say what percentage of the crowd was made up of these people, I notice, it only says it was “heavily populated.” Is that 10%, 30%. 90% or what; and how large was the crowd itself? quote: I beg your pardon? All I’ve ever heard the OWS folks say is that they’re not in the top 1% and they think that an economic system that greatly advantages those folk at the expanse of most other folk is a bad investment for a democracy. In fact, that’s pretty much a description of an oligarchy, isn’t it? Is C. Wright Mills’ classic The Power Elite still in print someplace? Has anybody read it? There is no dirty little secret here. The fact that there are downtrodden among us and that they’re part of the 99% doesn’t mean that they have time to take away from the daily work of survival to go demonstrate someplace. Where does this meat-headed investor’s guide get that idea? The whole point of the OWS is that it draws supporters from the very people that were once so completely caught up in the American dream that they were blind to how thoroughly they were being manipulated. The problem is that if they’re given a little bit of money and middle class status back, they’ll go back to sleep. That’s what happened in the thirties and forties. The middle class went back to sleep. The problem with the whole “trust fund idlers from well-off homes” routine these days is that there isn’t very much of the middle class left, so you won’t find a lot of trust fund idlers there, and the more monied classes, well, you may have some of them out on the picket lines, but it’s unlikely they’ll be the ones from the 1%, is it? So they’re just more of us, a little bit better off, but still looking at what the country’s turned into and not liking it very much. You don’t need to posit sinister plots to come up with the current scenario, though, do you? [Edited - Ron] What is exactly what you meant, Mike? Which of those ideas did you buy into that youy thought supported the thought of a Democratic plot to swing the election? Rather than the liklihood of years of economic stagnation and political roadblocks due to trickledown economics have allowed to ultra rich to drain the country of profit and ambitioin, and that the rest of us are finally getting upset about the situation. Which way the election will go seems completely up in the air, but the level of resentment against the rich will probably be a real factor. [This message has been edited by Ron (11-05-2011 10:09 AM).] |
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Balladeer
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The problem with the whole trust fund idlers from well-off homes routine these days is that there isn't very much of the middle class left Well, let's see. A little over 50% pay no taxes so they are not the middle class. The upper one percent (that pay 40% of all income taxes) and not the middle class. That leaves around 49% unaccounted for. Even shaving off a few from both sides, those who pay taxes but are still in the poverty level and those who are well off but not reaching the 1%, you still have a very large group who fall into the "middle class" range. Not very much, you say? Prove it. Which way the election will go seems completely up in the air, but the level of resentment against the rich will probably be a real factor. Thank you, Bob. You prove my assertion. That level of resentment may well indeed be a factor and that's why Obama is pushing it so hard. That's why every speech refers to "tax breaks for the rich" somewhere in it. That's why he always includes corporate executive bonuses whenever he feels like it. He does everything he can to push that resentment because he knows that's his only chance of re-election. He certainly can't go on his record, which is abysmal in every category. He needs the "bad guy". What better bad guy than the rich, right? There are many more poor people than rich ones....and many more votes to capture from the poor. He is courting those votes by assuring those people that they are victims of those evil rich devils, who pay almost half of the country's income tax. The class warfare of the rich upon the poor is and has been brutal and increasingly obvious. The wonder is that the middle class and the poor haven't acted long before this... Increasingly obvious for sure. How? By Obama pointing it out daily and by the democrats using it as a talking point, as you are doing now. Let me ask you to ask yourself a question. I don't want the answer. How is your life? I assume you are not one of the 1%ers. Do you feel your life is miserable because of the evil rich folks? Do you feel the brutality you point out is happening to you? My guess would be no. The wonder is that the poor and middle class haven't acted before this? Maybe it's because they haven't had a president to point out how miserable and badly treated they are. Maybe, not having that exhilarating information, they actually thought they had a decent life with their 2 bedroom, one bath dwelling, their 4.2 year old car and their 2.3 children. Maybe this middle class that you wonder why haven't revolted were too busy being happy and content without having a leader pounding in their heads how miserable they were supposed to be feeling. C'mon, Bob. That trick falls right into your category of work. You know very well that if 10 people tell a fellow he looks sick, even though he began the day feeling fine, by the end of the day he will actually feel sick. That's exactly the same tactic Obama is using. He WANTS people to feel miserable. He WANTS them mad at someone,, anyone, besides him...in this case, the rich. He is counting on their rebellion and the fact that they are so easily manipulated. Did he plan the OWS? No, but he hoped some type of rebellion would happen and, when it did, he, along with the unions, took advantage of it and moved in. There is a chance it will blow up in his face. One can only hope. He has shown once again that the welfare of the United States and the people is of little importance to him. His own personal future and his redistribution of wealth agenda, even if attained through violent means, is what interests him. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
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Mike, If you wish me to address your questions, you have a question on the table to address first. I need an explanation I can follow and understand of the material I discussed above. Insults do not make me understand . Comments about my stupidity, explicit or implicit, do not make things clear at all. Comments written by John’s dog may claim to understand what you’re saying, but Rufus hasn’t mastered spell-check, and is hard to read and understand in turn. Apparently the Dog understood the quotation from John’s article, but that makes the dog’s point of view suspect, since the essay in question was a tangle of half-truths and contradictions. The dog probably didn’t understand that, so you or John should have pointed these things out. Though all three of you apparently understood your comment to John. Like the article, it all came across as a big jumble of contradictions to me. I couldn’t even understand what the actual referent was when you were talking about that being exactly what you meant. I’ve pointed out this issue with wandering referents in political speech from time to time in the past. The Pronouns become very flexible and seem to switch to mean whatever the writer wants them to mean at the moment, so the actual meaning of the sentences dissolves like sugar in hot tea. This was one of the content issues that I was wanting clarification on from you. John said he understood it, but then I didn’t see John offering any specific nomination for referent either, and for any sort of clarification to take place, that would have been the minimum needed; that and some way in which all reasonable doubt could have been put aside as to how a naive reader might follow such a connection. I certainly couldn’t follow any connection that Mike was making, and I looked. So, please, let me know what the answer is to my question and I’ll be pleased to go about answering the questions you seem to be raising for me here. |
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Balladeer
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Bob, it's not necessary for you to address my questions. Actually, don't bother. I have no idea what you are referring to with your comments or what questions you want answered that I am supposedly avoiding...and I'm not even interested any longer. I stated my thoughts and opinions on the matter and, if you can't understand them, then so be it. I'm not going to have a Maalox moment over it. It's time to move on. Elvis has left the building. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
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I didn't think so. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Growing pains? Irony pains? — http://www.npr.org/2011/11/04/142031021/ows-donations-create-headaches-for-protesters |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Here's some brutality for you and it isn't from the '1%'. OWS attacks peaceful people attending Tea Party conference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prgkEAuSQT0&feature=player_embedded |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
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I certainly saw a fair amount of scuffle and heard a fair amount of noise. There were a lot of big buildings around. A lot of people were acting impolite to each other. Some people were walking around with red plastic tape on their jackets and were acting like paramedics. Others were wearing blue uniforms; but I wouldn't make out actual police insignia, only one sergeant's stripes. Not only did the video present no internal evidence that it was what you say it was, it showed no signs of anything approaching professional production values that would suggest it was anything but badly shot propaganda tape. It had no evience of violence that I could see, only pictures of people making claims after something may have happened. Maybe if you could be specific about what you'd like me to look for, I could have another look, Denise, to see if there's something specific I missed in the shuffle? |
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Balladeer
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Bob's right, Denise. I saw no blood, no broken bones or body parts lying in the streets. There were no woman knocked down, lying on the street (well, maybe, one or two), no fathers trying to get home with their son being blocked (well, maybe one) and, since Speilburg or George Lucas was not in charge of the production of the video, it was not professional enough to be believed. The whole thing was probably stages by evil right wing forces. For shame...... |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/giuliani-obama-owns-occupy-wall-street_607814.html . |
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Balladeer
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This is Obama's army. Now they're pushing 78 year-old women down cement stairs. 78-year-old Dolores Broderson is helped up after she was pushed down the stairs by Obama-endorsed Occupy DC protesters outside the Americans for Prosperity Dinner in Washington DC on Friday night. Daily Caller posted video of two women who were knocked down by the Occupy DC protesters outside the conservative conference dinner. Dolores is the second woman being helped up in the video. Both women look injured. Ray Patnaude emails: "My wife and I were at the AFP dinner. Some info on the AFP member who was pushed down the stairs by the protestors… she is the second woman the police are helping up in the Daily Caller video. Her name is Dolores Broderson, age 78. She rode on a bus for 11 hours from Detroit to get there. She went to the emergency room with a bloody nose and bruises on her hand and leg." http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/11/occupy- dc-protesters-push-78-year-old-woman-down-cement-stairs-at-afp-conference-video/ |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Thank YOU, Michael and John. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
The Weekly Standard is echoing party rhetoric here in suggesting that President Obama is indulging in class warfare and that the OWS folks are mirroring his rhetoric.. It’s a particularly ugly piece of rhetoric since it’s an attempt to coopt what’s traditionally a left-wing point of view. The Right has gotten very good at this in recent years. Class Warfare is only one of the more recent cooptions on their part; they’ve gotten equally adept at throwing charges of racism around as well. In this case the notion of the poor conducting class warfare against the rich is particularly noisome, considering the disparity in incomes and exactlyt how thoroughly the rich have been wiping up the floor with the poor for the past thirty years or so. The closest piece of truth that fits this enormous distortion is that the poor have gotten fed up and seem to be thinking over whether or not they should fight back. Fighting back is a matter of survival, to keep jobs and income in this country and not ship capital and jobs overseas. Fighting back should remind us that we are fighting back for our form of government, which is Democracy, which may use whatever form of economics it chooses. I am personally quite fond of Capitalism, but that doesn’t mean that I think that predatory Capitalism does us a lot of good as a country. I think it ends up sucking the blood out of a country, actually, for the advantage of a few. It needs to be put to work for the good of the country; the country should not be put to work for the good of Capital. Mayor Giuliani accepted a speaking engagement to present a pep talk to people who were supporting many of the views of predatory Capitalism. His speech was a peptalk for that approach to economics and to government as well. The group he presented that speech to is one that accepts significant funding from the Koch Brothers. When it comes to Predatory Capitalism, they seem to be The Real Thing. Not everybody loves Predatory Capitalism. quote: The citation to The Washington Post article is inappropriate. While there may have been violent altercations, the article is about protesters injured by cars and how some drivers left their cars to pick fights with the protesters. The comment about the fights being with Neighborhood residents is offered as an unconfirmed speculation by the Post. The source for the pushing incident is the video whose quality I mentioned last night. Clearly there was an woman who’d been hurt. I don’t know how it happened. If it was as a result of the protesters, then charges should be pressed and followed up on firmly. It doesn’t matter who breaks the law in this regard; there’d better be a good defence for it or there should be punishment for it . Not a lot of room in between. This is an excerpt of what Sourcewatch has to say about Americans for Prosperity. There is more information at the site listed below. quote: Now, back to the Standard: quote: I was pleased to note the Weekly Standard take notice of the fact that OWS — in this protest at least — have been mostly independant of the “professional left.” This piece of reality is not one the Right can often bring itself to mention. I was pleased to see that funding from George Soros was mentioned in the funding of this protest. I was then moved to wonder, why it’s so terrible to be funded by Mr. Soros, whose agenda is clear, and why the funding isn’t a matter of public recond on all these political events, and why it isn’t publicized as a matter of course. I wouldn’t mind knowing where Mr. Soros bestowed his generosity at all, and I assume my Right wing friends would also like to know the same information. I wouldn’t mind having articles published in the press in general about Mr Soros and his plusses and minuses; I’d like to know what kind of guy he is. As long as everything is truthful and above-board, I’d think that it would be an exercise in the positive use of the First Amendment. I’d also like the same scrutiny Applied to Rev. Moon, to Mr. Scaife, to the Hunt Brothers of past glory, to The Brorthers Koch, to Reverend Robertson and to the relationship of ministries in general and Christian fundamentalist ministries in particular in financial terms to the Republican Party and to the various branches of government. I think an open and honest examination of these relationships would be absolutely fascinating, and that all such information about both parties should be made public, even publicized well in advance of any elections. In this case, I would be particularly interested in how these monies supported the movement of money toward the most wealthy members of society and to the most well established structures in this society. Some of these connections would no doubt be to Democrats, who should be voted out of office for maintaining such ties. And some connections will be to other parties. |
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Balladeer
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You are welcome, Denise |
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Balladeer
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At the Occupy Phoenix demonstrations, fliers encourage protesters to violently resist police officers, asserting that "you will usually have only two options: submit, or kill the cop." At Zuccotti Park in Manhattan, an Occupy Wall Street protester was sexually assaulted in her tent; according to the New York Post, a woman was raped at the same site a few weeks earlier. In Denver, "Occupy" activists turned on the police, screaming obscenities and knocking a motorcycle cop to the ground. Occupy Oakland grew even more violent, as police were pelted with bottles and rocks, and had M-80 firecrackers thrown at them. And in cities from Boston to Berkeley, Occupy encampments have coincided with surges in vandalism, assault, and theft. Some individuals have strained to compare the Occupy Wall Street protests to the Tea Party movement. "They're not that different," President Obama told ABC's Jake Tapper. "Both on the left and the right, I think people feel separated from their government." The Daily Show's host Jon Stewart argued: "Here's a group of Americans, disenchanted, railing against big government bailouts…. These protesters, how are they not like the Tea Party?" But the contrast between the Occupiers and the Tea Partiers could hardly be greater. Tea Party rallies haven't turned public squares into squalid slums or incited protesters to curse the police. What the Occupy movement descended to in less than two months -- the hundreds of arrests, the vandalism, the anti-Semitic rants, the all-night drumming, the public urination -- is like nothing the American public saw in more than two years of Tea Party activism. http://patriotpost.us/opinion/jeff-jacoby/2011/11/02/occupiers-tea-partiers-and-the-tenth-commandment/ |
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Balladeer
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Donny Deutch hopes for a "kent State" type moment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_36PZ_qFkg&feature=player_embedded |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: I don't know that The Tea Party has tried anything comparable to what the OWS folks have tried, frankly. The notion of occupying ground hasn't been in the Tea Party vocabulary. The Tea Party has Rallies or conventions of one sort or another, and they go back home. I'm not being critical of that; it seems like a perfectly reasonable way of going about things. Not all Right Wing organizations are using that model, which seems quite a sensible model to me. Some of the Right Wing Organizations that haven't used that model have in fact run into confrontations with authorities, as one might remember from run-ins with the Branch Davidians, for example, or with some political splinter groups who flirt with large collections of illegal arms. The Tea Party by and large seems much calmer than many of these groups. Bless them for that. OWS demonstrators would not be the only folks to curse the police, however. And the attacks on authority and on the laws that support law and justice in this country to my understanding are under solid attack from the right with the Republican attack on Posse Comitatus, use of soldiers in dealing with domestic disputes, attacks on human rights and attempts to extend human rights to corporations, attempts to abridge rights involving search and seizure and so on. Such provocations certainly stir up discord. Support of predatory Capitalism and lack of support and protection for ordinary citizens also constitutes a considerable provocation, as does the dismantling of the protections the people have tried to construct over seventy-five years to keep some measure of security in place against the depredations of the rapacious Class. These are not necessarily the most wealthy people; they are the people whose sense of responsibility to their fellows is most atrophied and whose estimation of their own necessity most keen. Arrests may often be confused by the self-righteous with convictions, but they are not the same at all. Police on occasion make this mistake when they more than most should be aware of the difference. An arrest is not a definition of guilt, though many a police officer would like to have you think so. It's an allegation that needs to be proved. Of all the hundreds of arrests that are spoken about in the quote above, one can't help but wonder why the speaker doesn't crow about convictions. I can't say for sure. But I can say that they would probably dislike being called out as a liar; and that's what they'd be if they tried to talk about convictions. Arrests sounds so much like tough talk, though, instead of being a description of giving a bunch of guys in uniforms a chance to beat up a bunch of folks whose ability to defend themselves is limited to throwing sticks and rocks and the occasional fire-cracker against guys with shields and helmets and riot batons designed to do real harm, and who have access to a whole variety of less-lethal and even fully lethal weapons should they feel they need them. Almost everybody gets scared in a tight spot; and the folks who don't are usually psychopaths, whose nervous systems don't operate as anything like normal efficiency until they're blasted full of natural and synthetic adrenaline-type products. I don't blame the police for suiting up in riot gear. It's not their business to offer a fair fight. It's not their business to fight at all; it's their business to cut violence short in as professional and safe and brief a way as they can, and they do that; and for the most part they do it very well. But the Tea Party wasn't trying to do anything like what the OWS folks seem to be trying to do. The OWS people seem to me to be trying to do some pump priming to get the economy working again. They seem to be saying that Predatory Capitalism will kill the country, and that Capitalism needs to have some clear commonsense regulations on it to keep it from destroying the economy of the entire country for the benefit for maybe 1% of the country, and that what the country needs is a widespread prosperity. The Tea Party people seem to be saying that we need to be doing more of what's wrecked the economy so far, only this time we should get tough about it. The more we've tried that over the past 30 years, the worse it's gotten. In AA they say that the definition of Insanity is to keep doing something that's failed. Reaganomics: Been there, done that, blown it; doing it again doesn't make any sense at all. |
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Balladeer
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Been there, done that, blown it; doing it again doesn't make any sense at all. Nice to see you are against Obama's call for Stimulus II also, Bob. |
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Balladeer
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Arrests sounds so much like tough talk, though, instead of being a description of giving a bunch of guys in uniforms a chance to beat up a bunch of folks whose ability to defend themselves is limited to throwing sticks and rocks and the occasional fire-cracker against guys with shields and helmets and riot batons designed to do real harm, and who have access to a whole variety of less-lethal and even fully lethal weapons should they feel they need them. ...and then we have... I don't blame the police for suiting up in riot gear. It's not their business to offer a fair fight. It's not their business to fight at all; it's their business to cut violence short in as professional and safe and brief a way as they can, and they do that; and for the most part they do it very well. So are the police a bunch of guys in uniform, complete with shields, helmets and riot batons designed to do real harm, beating up a bunch of folks unable to arm and defend themselves or are they professionals acting in a safe, efficient manner to cut violence short? After reading your comments, I have no idea which you believe. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
The comments are about points of view, Mike. If you speak about arrests as a way of keeping score — as some people are on occasion are wont to do — you loose the perspective of the first point of view. It is a cruel and uneven struggle, and the police are being utilized as a tool for purposes they may or may not agree with in personal terms. The people who are running things keep score by talking about the number of arrests, which carefully takes the issue of whether the police have been used justly off the table, doesn't it? You can "arrest" almost anybody; the challenge comes in making the arrest stick in legal terms, and most of these — the ones we're talking about here — don't seem to have achieved the same number of convictions as arrests, or anywhere close to the same number. To me, this says that the powers of the police have been misused. The police have been used to provide a show for the public and for the sponsors of the government officials who are issuing the orders to the police. In this case, as in so many other cases, the management is making inappropriate use of the labor and the conservative seem to be trying to blame the labor. It isn't the cops in this case, it's the politicians who're telling the cops what to do. In this case, the wrong things. In the second case Mike is mentioning, I'm talking about the professionalism of cops on the whole. On the whole, they are professional, especially when professionally directed and not used as a political intervention force. I like to think that, on the whole, courts have difficulty backing up illegal behavior on the part of anybody, including cops. Sometimes that means arrests get thrown out. There's a fairly wide range of behavior that's tolerated from the police by the courts, and generally the police don't abuse it. And sometimes they do. Perhaps Mike thinks that this is inconsistent of me. I don't think so. I think that cops by and large are professional and behave professionally and have a professional set of standards and practices. Sometimes this doesn't look professional because the use of force is inherently ugly. The use of force by police is monitored by the courts to make sure it doesn't exceed professional bounds, as it should be monitored. If officers don't want to be monitored, they should be in less vital professions. If they exceed professional standards, they should be sanctioned. At what point does Mike have a problem with this? At what point is this point of view inconsistent? Police should not be misused for political purposes. When they are, it undercuts the authority of the police and the relationship the police try to build with the community? If much of the work the police were doing in relation to OWS were legitimate, then the arrests they were making would be likely to be supported by an equivalent mass of convictions, because the courts would be likely to see things as the police do rather than as the protestors do. The Right wing folks who comment here seem to dismiss this as though it weren't a factor, ignoring the damage that is done by misuse of police authority for political purposes. If they were in fact supportive of the police instead of the right wing political agenda my Right Wing friends defend so unthinkingly, they might take this into consideration. The assumption they make, it appears to me, is that the laws in place are incorrect, and that the police are being used to enforce the laws that should be there in Ring Wing World, and that's perfectly okay with them. Now I have some ideas about what the law should be as well, but being an American, I'd rather have them go through the legal process of being voted on and passed and, if necessary, tested in court before being enforced by the police that are supposed to enforce the laws that bind all of us, and that representatives we have commonly elected have passed. Was it in Phoenix recently that the police kept arresting demonstrators for gathering at night and the courts kept releasing them in the morning because there was no law that made such gatherings illegal? That sort of thing seems to miss the point of the law entirely and to stray dangerously into the exclusive confines of Right Wing World. At some point, it might be entertained, the citizens of Phoenix or even of Arizona as a whole thought their liberties would possibly be protected by allowing public gatherings without the benefit of police oversight. That would be a good conservative point of view, wouldn't it? Apparently somebody with the power to command the Phoenix police seems to think differently. The police are basically decent guys, and basically professionals. That doesn't mean they are proof against being misused by management, now, does it? What part of that is confusing? What's inconsistant? What part is wrong? What do you disagree with? |
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Balladeer
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The police have been used to provide a show for the public and for the sponsors of the government officials who are issuing the orders to the police. In this case, as in so many other cases, the management is making inappropriate use of the labor and the conservative seem to be trying to blame the labor. It isn't the cops in this case, it's the politicians who're telling the cops what to do. In this case, the wrong things. Prove it. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
The conviction rate proves it, Mike. If the orders the police were getting weree legal, the arrests would be upheld. If the politicians were convinced, they could appeal. Think. |
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Balladeer
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The conviction rate proves nothing. I would say the majority of cases haven't even gone to trial unless you think that a judge sits there and waits for the arrestees to come in so he can pronounce immediate sentence. Besides, what was the conviction rate of those tried? Do you even know? You leveled charges against both the police and the supposed "higher powers" that told them to disregard the law. Those are pretty serious charges. Prove them if you can. |
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Balladeer
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DOlores Broderson, the 78 year old woman who was pushed down a flight of stairs, gave this account today... She stated that she and friends were simply trying to leave the convention center and were surrounded by protestors, who linked arms, refused to let them leave, and screamed obscenities at them. One fellow freed his arm and pushed her down a flight of 8 concrete stairs. She was transported to the hospital. She also stated that there were five squad cars of NY police there, doing nothing. They were not getting people away from the COnvention Center or confronting anyone at all. Sorta blows Bob's theory out of the water, I guess. Here are your protestors, fellas. Be proud. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/11/78-year-old-conservative-woman-talks-about-occupy-dc-goons-pushing-her-down-stairs-video/ |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
What? It blows my theory of police acting professionally out of the water? I still think police act professionally most of the time, and I'd be willing to bet that you do too. That doesn't mean there aren't exceptions, which I already discussed. I discussed the Phoenix experience as well. If the woman was pushed down a flight of stairs, then the person or people who did it should be identified if possible and arrested. I suspect that in situations like these that the police are not particularly interested in provoking an additional outbreak of violence by their own actions. That may explain their reluctance to get involved in some of the incidents where people on either side urged the police to intervene. I wouldn't know, but I could understand how such a thing might happen. I thought the lady had a perfect right to be there and I sympathized with her situation though I didn't agree with her politics. She should have been safer. She should not have had to worry about her safety at all, and she should have been able to count not only on the support of the police and her companions, but also the support of the demonstrators as well. There is a certain moral dimension that they are trying to achieve. I am assuming that the story the woman is telling is accurate here, as best she can tell it. It seems better information than I saw on the video, at any rate. As for proving the business about the arrests, your comment about the immediacy of convictions is well taken. Yet many arrests that I recall have been followed up by immediate fines or quick sentences en masse for the demonstrators when the state seemed to have a solid enough case. Justice was seldom drawn out, and I have my doubts that it's the case with these arrests across the country. I also do not hear about consequences other than arrests, which in the past have tended to be quickly publicized as a warning to others. Sorry, Mike, I simply don't see it the way you do here. The actual reports you've been able to come up with of consequences have been few and far between. And many of the reports of the transgressions of the demonstrators seem to be refuted fairly enough by the demonstrators themselves. The ones that I believe have not been refuted thus far are the reports that the New York demonstrators have been poor neighbors to the residents and businesses near their encampment and that the drumming has been a particular problem. The businesses report that they are suffering financially. These are for the most part Mom & Pop stores or small businesses with tight cash flows — I hear — and they deserve better. At least that's my information. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
In looking at the link provided, I was somewhat taken aback to notice the piece of neo-Nazi propaganda included. The author was apparently convinced that his allusion needed explanation and was careful to supply it, including the original German and a translation. He was so carried away by his cleverness that he overlooked the fact that he'd gotten his sides mixed up. The Nazis were Right Wing thugs and butchers who loved the art of the big lie. They hated the same things that "Mannie" hates and would agree with most of the positions that "Mannie's" taking. The people that Mannie dislikes, trade unionists, union organizers, leftists and so on, are among the first people the Nazis shipped off to death camps. Mannie and his pals are apparently taking the somewhat tepid endorsements of the Democratic leadership as ownership for the OWS movement as though they'd said something that couldn't be backed away from in a hot second. There isn't enough of an actual set of principles from the OWS movement at this point to stand behind, as Mike and friends were saying actively in these pages not so many weeks ago. The party line changed. Now the former criticism of OWS is gone with the wind and it has become for my Republican friends a mighty monolith of destruction of the American Dream. O what a change a week or two can bring! What I hear is the repetitive flapping sound of the Republicans flip-flopping on yet another position to enable the party to paint the President as The Great Satan. If that means distorting OWS into a vast un-American conspiracy, so what? Distorting a little reality between friends shouldn't be a problem, should it? The Right is cranking up the paranoia machine again. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I see. You would key in on one of the viewers of the web page making a remark in the comments section to make some kind of point and badmouth the right?? Do you know who this Manny is? Do you know who his "pals" are that you refer to? Of course not. He's just someone who made a comment. Shall I bring up comments by lefties on pages, too, and paint the commenters as valid representatives of the left. I guess we could start with those who want to kill all of the Jews. Will you accept them as valid leftist spokesmen? C'mon, Bob. Try to discuss the issues and not veer off on such sideroads, please. I'll ask my question one more time. How many convictions have there been with regards to those arrested? How can you prove your claims that police are being ordered to act against normal police procedures and act illegally? Still waiting for you to prove your claims. |
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Mistletoe Angel
since 2000-12-17
Posts 32816Portland, Oregon |
I have several updates to share from my neck of the wood. Oregonian: November 8, 2001 ("The Occupation Loses Another Occupier") "> The first reinforces my belief that from the beginning there have been many affiliated with the Occupy _______ movement that entered with hopes for more positive discussion and constructive aims in varying degrees..........but have since been overshadowed by more confrontational, ill-tempered rabble-rousers, and who they themselves feel the movement has lost its way. Thus, I share this just to put into perspective that large swaths of the original, or to some degree still current, participants of Occupy ________ hardly endorse the harassment of passer-bys, pushing elderly women down flights of stairs or the use of Molotov cocktails in protest. Many, I'd dare say most, oppose those sorts of actions.........and have since been abandoning the occupation in droves because they feel hopelessly encumbered and drowned out by the louder, more shriller voices. * Oregonian: November 9, 2011 Secondly, a Molotov cocktail exploded at the stairwell of the World Trade Center in downtown Portland last night, and this morning it was confirmed that numerous individuals saw the suspect return to the Occupy Portland camp. * Oregonian: November 9, 2011 Finally, the Small Business Advisory Council voted 12-1 today in favor of encouraging the City of Portland to evict campers from Lownsdale and Chapman squares (the site of Occupy Portland)........highlighting how the working class American is more distracted by these protests than the CEOs. Tellingly, the solitary "no" vote came from a floral boutique located three miles from downtown. * Namaste, lisping HIBISCUS "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other" Mother Teresa |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Thanks, Noah. Both you and the Oregonian confirm what I spelled out in my post #255 in this thread. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “This is Obama's army. Now they're pushing 78 year-old women down cement stairs.” ……………………………. “Complaints about wealth inequality . . . have been front and center at Occupy Wall Street protests around the country.” "It makes us wonder whether the extraordinary amount of resources we spend on retirees and their health care should be at least partially reallocated to those who are hurting worse than them," said Harry Holzer, a labor economist and public policy professor at Georgetown University who called the magnitude of the gap "striking." http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WE ALTH_GAP_YOUNG_AND_OLD?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-11-07-04-04-09 ................. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYTIgcMRdbU&feature=related . [This message has been edited by Huan Yi (11-09-2011 07:33 PM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
You can see how many people were arrested in New York as of the date listed. You can also see exactly how thrilled the DA folks are with taking these cases to trial, which gives you a pretty good idea of exactly how dangerous and ugly these folks were. You can see that none of them have been convicted. You can judge for yourself the likelihood of convictions and the liklihood of the severity of any sentencing. You will still not get me to say anything bad about the police. I was specific about where and how I thought the police were misused. I mentioned Phoenix specifically, already. http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-03/-occupy-wall-street-protesters-request-trial-at-court-hearing-in-new-york Your point about OWS, if I understand it correctly, is that these are dangerous and wretched people who must be punished and who must not be permitted to continue to demonstrate. Any violence is deplorable. I have offered what criticism I have heard that I believed to be accurate of OWS, and I have deplored it. I continue to deplore it. They also have a valid point about the way that Predatory Capitalism as opposed to decently regulated capitalism has damaged our society and many of the people in it. I’m very sorry that you find the point objectionable and that you criticize, and many of your friends criticize the notion of redistribution of wealth. You may have missed the fact that your particular views, Republican views, have sought to redistribute wealth as well. In the case of the Republican effortrs, this redistribution is from the poorest people to the richest, a sort of reverse Robin Hood syndrome that favors the Sheriff of Nottingham.This has not always been the Republican way. The fact that it is the Republican way now might justifiably be bothersome to folks who take pride in the glorious past of that Party. The fact that it is for the most part not a problem at all seems telling to me that the party that prided itself on trust busting is now seen by the majority of Americans as being the party that’s in the pockets of the Rich; and that the party that freed the slaves now bends considerable effort to keep their descendants from voting. As for the comments about the neo-nazi content of the magazine you chose to cite as a reference, I was criticizing your reference which had some choice about whether to print neo-nazi material or not. They certainly have the widest possible latitude in their printing of political material. Their poor choice in comparing the President to Hitler was very bad taste indeed. The presence of neo-nazis on the Right is onlty natural; the nazis are a right wing movement, and not everybody on the Right agrees with them. I know that you don’t, for example. But those folks are an intimate part of many right wing events. Mr. Pearce, the Gentleman who helped introduce the Arizona racial profiling measure, sent out neonazi propaganda, and the people who helped him write the law had some connections with eugenics and some of the nazi racial doctrines. They supported that law in part because the wrote most of it. You might look back on prior discussions for references. That doesn’t make you or the Republican Party nazis however. You aren’t trying to pass of their views as your own, are you? You aren’t publishing them in Republican magazines without comment, are you? That would put you in dubious company indeed; so, no, I didn’t think so. There are left wing groups that are fully as nuts when it comes to the Arab -Jewish conflict. I think those folks are anti-jewish or perhaps anti-zionist nuts. It’d be hard strictly to call them anti-semites, I think, because Arabs are Semites as well. You want to call those groups anti-zionist, it’s fine with me; they are. You want to call OWS anti-semites, your thinking isn’t working riught; you’re confusing a part with the whole, and for that matter, a fairly small part at that. Your citation, however, identified that publication as any number of possible things. Most straightforwardly, it identifies them as a magazine that doesn’t mind taking the risk of being seen as anti-semitic; that’s okay with them. That also means that they don’t mind how that perception affects the way that other people see the other things that are published in that magazine as a result. You’ve got every right in the world to tell me that your reference citation is simply a matter of my skewed perception. In fact, you have. My response is to say that your citation could care less what I think but that it apparently cares very much what Mannie thinks because it not only printed his comments aboutr the President, but Printed the German original and a translation, just in case nobody got the connection that he was trying to make. quote: In answer, if you think that the comments have some effect on the believablility of the text being cited, you probably have something of an obligation to bring them up, don’t you? It would tend to keep the citations more from publications that have some regard for their reputations and for the truthfulness of what they print, I’d think. If you believe that there are anti-semites on the left, by the way, you’d probably be right, and they should probably be seen for what they are. Should I be complicit in keeping a secret like that simply because I share some of the same politics? That doesn’t mean I share everything, and I can criticize people who are in sustantial agreement with me for areas where we part ways as easily as I’d expect them to criticize me. How else are we supposed to learn from each other? The following links might be useful for infoirmation you requested. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67187.html https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/176330-1.pdf http://www.nlg-npap.org/html/news.htm |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Who in the woreld cares what this Manny thinks, Bob????????? It was a comment on a site, nothing more, by someone who read the article....period...no different than the protestor who held up the sign calling for the end of Jews? What was the left response to that? "Oh, well, he;s a radical and doesn't present the views of the protestors."...and then you go off on some stranger who posts his own opinion and pin the tail on the rightie. Get real, please! [This message has been edited by Ron (11-09-2011 11:27 PM).] |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I won't get you to say anything bad about the police? Arrests sounds so much like tough talk, though, instead of being a description of giving a bunch of guys in uniforms a chance to beat up a bunch of folks whose ability to defend themselves is limited to throwing sticks and rocks and the occasional fire-cracker against guys with shields and helmets and riot batons designed to do real harm, and who have access to a whole variety of less-lethal and even fully lethal weapons should they feel they need them. I don't need to, Bob. You do it very well all by yourself. |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
For the record, Bob, so long as Mannie was able to do so respectfully, he could post his opinions in this forum, too. Just as you do. Trust me, that doesn't necessarily mean I agree with either of you. Nor do I think it should reflect one way or another on anything else posted in the forums. Guilt by association is a very unconvincing argument. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: quote: The Gateway Pundit is not a board reserved for open conversation. Mike. It pretends to be a news organization. If it wants to publish material like Mannie's, it should feel free to do so as, plainly, it does. But when it doesn't draw a distinction between editorial and News content, its value as a citation of other than opinion drops to zero. Debased currency drives out good currency, just like with counterfeit money. I very sorry the 78 year old lady ended up injured. When a magazine with the kind of agenda that this one has jumps to conclusions as to how that happened, I have trouble trusting that agenda. I actually read through the blog afterward, and so did at least one other reader for reasons that seemed as sensible as the ones put forward by the magazine but which went unreported and uncommented upon and essentially buried. I have no sense what the actual truth might have been, but then I suspect that the Pundit may not know that either and they remain untroubled by their construction of events. Were they The Prosecution, I would be happy with such a stance, but they weren't. Nor do I want to take over the function of The Defense; how would I know what the facts are? But I do know enough to feel suspectious of the degree of inference The Pundit is using, and to understand that they are substituting that inference for a direct reporting of the facts. A lot of the Right Wing citations have this particular flaw, and it makes these publications highly suspect as other than sources of opinion. Opinion is one thing, information is something else. I don't need the Pundit for an opinion about Occupy DC. I have one myself, and if all our opinions are worth the same, I'd as soon listen to one that's more pleasant or more entertaining or more believable. I mean, all other things being equal and all. If I'm listening for information, I want information I can trust. I don't have to agree with it. I don't even imagine I know close to everything, and I know that a lot of the stuff I think I know is simply wrong. Finding out new stuff keeps me alive and keeps my brain growing, making new connections. Trying to picture how mass deforms the geometry of space makes me sweat, and I like that. Trying to figure out what happened to that 78 year old lady makes me curious and I simply have a lot of trouble iumagining a bunch of demonstrators pushing a lady down a flight of stairs for no reason. It could happen, but most of the violence I've seen doesn't happen like that, and I've seen a fair amount of violence. As far as violence goes, my right wing friends may think that it's pretty wild, but I think if it has been there would have been some major casualties on the side of the demonstrators, very heavy casualties indeed, and that there might have been some among the police as well, and relatively speaking, there have been very few and very mild. This has been very gentlemanly civil disobedience. There are those of us who remember Paris in 1968, or the democratic convention in Chicago in 1968, the riots in Saigon during the Diem Regime, the riots in South America during the Nixon visits in 1956. Kent State. Tienamin Square. When serious civil disobedience takes place, there can be some serious casualties. These have been for the most part pretty quiet. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
For those interested, this is a website that carries a lot of information about OWS activities and plans, some of which may be of interest, some of which may not. http://occupywallst.org/ I noticed that early on the site was a questionaire that appeared to be about Demographics of the OWS movement. I thought that might be a useful sort of data to gather, and it might be a bit of a help in our discussions if and when the information becomes available. Nice to see that folks are starting to gather that sort of thing now. I notice that the OWS folk, like my friends on the Right, appear to have suspicions about the media, though their worries seem to have a slightly different (stated) cause. I figure that if both left and right are nervous about the major media, that offers some reason to think the media may be doing at least some of their job correctly; how much will be better judged in retrospect. Since there seems general agreement on the reality of bias in the media, that suggests that the bias may be real, but simply not grotesquely enough in favor of one side or the other to make a single side basically pleased with the efforts the media are making. I thought I'd make the location of the site available to those who weren't aware of it so they might;a) take part in the excitement ;or, b) stay ahead of the nefarious plots;or, c) remain blissfully above the whole thing. Your choice, as though you might have been taken by surprise by that fact. Enjoy. Or not. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Mike, in looking back over your comments, which I give you as you posted them, quote: I would call your attention to the fact that they have been quoted out of context, and the meaning has been distorted by this practice out of recognition. You have yourself spoken out against unionization plans so police might push for more desirable working conditions, and a greater say in staffing levels, which strikes at the very safety of the officers. I defended the right of officers to have a voice in these matters. My criticism in this quote was directed at the misuse of police presence to please politicians and to help further political goals. Thge tough talk is not on the part of tghe police, who approach this sort of activity as professionally as possible; and the chance to do this particular job is not being given the police by the police themselves, as you well know; they are ordered to act for reasonas that may or may not be popular among any particular group of officers. My actual statement is post number 286. If it had actually said what you thought it did, that statement would have been much shorter and simpler to write. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
And Ron, I was addressing The Pundit and the issues brought up by their difficulty in failing to distinguish between opinion and fact. One of their own readers brought up the issue further down in the blog in what I thought was a very objective way. That reader thought that the paper was giving the left a gift by the way it was trying to present the facts of the pushing incident itself. I think he was right. As for Mannie, If they want to publish him, that’s their business. They own the magazine. What they are doing there, however, is different than what you do here. They say they are a magazine and they make a pretense of publishing “news.” They also publish “opinion” in the form of a blog. You publish, in this part of your PiP project, a series of opinion threads which are constructed with a wide degree of leeway. A quotation from one of these threads is not meant to be taken as a fact; it’s meant to be taken as an opinion. If somebody wants to publish journalism, they should not assume this is the place to go to publish it. You make no pretense of offering this service. As far as I know, you never did. This operation is what the late Eric Berne would probably call a clean operation; that is, what it says above the front door is what gets shipped out the loading dock in back. It says, [bold]Acme Opinion Company[/bold] over the front gate and it shows the specs proudly for everyone to see who labors there. Go to the rear gate, open up one of the packages from one of the trucks and you’ll find an Acme Opinion, quality controlled and inspected as per specs, in every box. At a real news magazine, that’s what you’ll find, too, including the inspection. The real news magazines and newspapers, too, may have opinion in them as well, but they draw a careful line between opinion and news because a news magazine runs on reputation. The Pundit didn’t do its job. It reported things that other people said uncritically, and it reported them as fact. This is what one blog writer pointed out. It wasn’t a real news magazine; it was an opinion magazine pretending to be a news magazine because it didn’t ask or attempt to answer the questions that the blogger was asking. These are the same questions that any reasonably skeptical news consumer should be asking. I think the reason that The Pundit wasn’t asking the questions is because it isn’t in the business of reporting news; it’s in the business of stirring up rage. That’s what I think. I can remember seeing left wing pamphlets that were written the same way, and if you look on the net, surely you can find their equivalent there today. That’s what Mannie was doing in his blog entry. I don’t fault Mannie for it; that’s simply who Mannie is and that’s probably the most insightful as he can get at this particular moment in time. The problem is that The Pundit was publishing it in a format that put it cheek by jowl with what a lot of people can’t distinguish from news. And that gave it a degree of weight that was purely — at least in my opinion — artificial. I confess the nature of those opinions certainly help shape the degree of my reaction to it. Conflating President Obama with Adolf Hitler requires doing the very notion of analogy a certain amount of damage, and managing to inject that level of loathing and rage into it is actually, at least for me, psychologically painful. Seeing such material there and seeing it here, however, are different things. I don’t like that sort of thing here, but we are not trying to present ourselves as a news organization, and as long as that rage is not thrown upon other people here or isn’t expressed as a direct threat to somebody in government (which may bring out the Secret Service or other police actions) or in private life (which may be covered by laws governing assault) the laws about free speech and the rules of this site are quite accepting. Mannie’s opinions, as long as they don’t or didn’t get personal, could get shipped out the back dock without any problems. There’s shouldn’t be any guilt by association involved there, unless I tag myself with it. I hope nobody will tell my liberal friends. On the other hand, The Pundit, to the extent that it wants to be thought of as a news source, has a fair sized problem indeed. It hasn’t kept its blog separate from its news. This is something that news magazines and papers make an attempt to do, so that their news authority is not tarnished by the opinions of its editorial writers or such readers who may wish to contribute. The Pundit has not done so thus far, possibly contributing to the notion — the correct notion as it turns out — that such a contribution would be welcome there. I predict that more such contributions will be published there in th future, and that the critical thinking in editing the various news articles published will not rise significantly. As someone once pointed out to me in helping to consider whether a particular suicidal patient should be allowed a pass to walk about the grounds, “The past is the best predictor of the future.” I pointed out that we now had airplanes and cars and highways, and he pointed out to me that the patient would also get out of the hospital one day, one way or another. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
So now we have Occupy Oakland breaking into city hall, trashing offices, breaking windows, burning American flags, destroying a children's art exhibit....and what does the White House have to say about it? Jay Carney..."It's a local law enforcement matter." Hmmmm...they didn't feel the same way about Obama's friend, the Cambridge professor. That little incident got Obama's full attention, not to mention the mainstream press. If it were the tea party doing that in Oakland, Obama would be screaming in three-part harmony with the network stations. Still want to compare the tea party with the OWS? Be my guest....... |
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